LiHini 




l^^^H 


^^^^1 


1 \ 


■ ■ ' ' ' 


IN 


^M 


uAC 




> ^ 


^^^1 


W' ^ 




1 ' 


^^H 


3 3'xi 




' 


'SBI 


.: il'"' 






{| 


n^v ' 


•- M . 


! 






5 


^ 



1 1 rn^^^^^^^^^^^^Bi 



Class 







Book .fig 



GopyrightN^. 



%- 



CfiHmiGHT DffiPOSm 



•vii 



mt 



General Editor 

LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A.B 

Professor of English in Brown University 



ADDISON — The Sir Roger De Coverley Pavers — Abbott 35c 

ADDISON AND STEELE— SeZedions /rom The Tatler and The Spec 

tator — Abbott 35c 

^neid of Virgil — Allinson ,40c 

BROWNING — Selected Poems — Reynolds 40c 

BUNYAN — The Pilgrim*s Progress— 'Latham 30c 

BURKE — Speech on Conciliation with America — Dennet 30c 

GARLYLE — Essay on Burns — Aiton 25c 

CHAUCER — Selections — Greenlatv 40c 

COLERIDGE — The Ancient Mariner \ ^ , ^>r 

LOWELL-F^ow Of Sir Launfal / ^ voI.-Moody 25c 

COOPER — The Last of the Mohicans — Lewis 40c 

COOPER— rfte Spy— Damon 40c 

DANA — Two Years Before the Mast — Westcott 45c 

DEFOE — Robinson Crusoe — BLa.sting3 40c 

Democracy Today — Gauss 40c 

DE OUINCEY— J'oan of Arc and Selections— Mooby 25c 

DE QUINCE Y—TTie Flight of a Tartar Tribe— French 25c 

DICKENS — A Christmas Carol, etc.— Broabvs , 35c 

DICKENS— A Tale of Two Cities— Baldwin 45c 

DICKENS — David Copperfield—BAi.DwiN 50c 

DRYDEN — Palamon and Arcite— Cook 25c 

EMERSON — Essays and Ad&^esses — Heydrick 35c 

English Poems — From Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Byron, 

MACAULAY, Arnold and others — SCUDDER 45c 

English Popular Ballads— Hart 40c 

Familiar Letters — Greenlaw 40c 

FRANKLIN — Autobiography — Griffin 35c 

GASKELL (Mrs.)— Cran/orcZ— Hancock 35c 

GEORGE ELIOT— 5iZas Afarner— Hancock 35c 

GEORGE ELIOT— r^e Mill on the Floss— Ward 45c 

GOLDSMITH— r/ie Vicar of Watefield— Morton 30c 

HAWTHORNE— T?ze House of the Seven Gables— Ubrrick 40c 

UAWTHORNlE^^Twice-Told Tales— HuRRiCK and Bruere 45c 

HUGHES — Tom Brown's School Days — De Mille 40c 

IRVING— Lifeof Goldsmith— Krafp 40c 

IRVING — The Sketch Boot— Krapp 40c 

IRVING — Tales of a Traveller — and parts of The Sketch Boot — Krapp 45c 
LAMB — Essays of Elia — Benedict „ 35c 



LONGFELLOW — Narrative Poems — Powell 40c 

LOWELL — Vision of Sir Launfal — See Coleridge. 

MACAULAY — Essays on Addison and Johnson — Newcombb 35c 

I MACAULAY — Essays on Clive and Hastings — Newcomer 35c 

MACAULAY — Goldsmith, Frederic The Great, Madame D'Arblay — New- 
comer 35c 

MACAULAY — Essays on Milton and Addison — Newcomer 35c 

MILTON — L' Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas — Neilson. . . . 30c 

MILTON — Paradise Lost, Books I and II — Farley 25c 

Old Testament Narratives — Rhodes 40c 

PALGRAVE — Golden Treasury — Newcomer 40c 

PARKMAN — The Oregon Trail — Macdonald 40c 

POE — Poems and Tales, Selected — Newcomer 35c 

POPE — Homer's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII. XXIV— Cresst and Moody 25c 

READE— rAe Cloister and The Hearth— TtH MiLLE 50c 

RUSKIN — Sesame and Lilies — Linn 25c 

SCOTT — Ivanhoe — Simonds 45c 

SCOTT — Quentin Durward — Simonds 45c 

SCOTT — Lady of the Late — Moody 35c 

SCOTT — Lay of the Last Minstrel — Moody and Willard ^.,,. 25c 

SCOTT — Marmion — Moody and Willard 35c 

SHAKSPERE — The Neilson Edition — Edited by W. A. Neilson, each. 30c 

As You Lite i: Macbeth 

Hamlet Midsummer-Night's Dream 

Henry V Romeo and Juliet 

Julius Caesar The Tempest 

Twelfth Night 

SHAKSPEKR^Merchant of Venice— Loyett 30c 

SOUTHEY— Li/e of Nelson— Westcott -, 40c 

STEVENSON — Inland Voyage and Travels with a Dontey — Leonard. 35c 

STEVENSON — Kidnapped — Leonard •. , 35c 

STEVENSON — Treasure Island — Broadus 30c 

TENNYSON— Selected Poems — Reynolds 40c 

TENNYSON — The Princess — Copeland 25c 

THOREAU—TFaWen— Bowman 45c 

THACKERAY— Henry Esmond— Phelps 50c 

THACKERAY— ^n^ZlsA HumoHsts—CvmjiFFE and Watt 30c 

Three American Poems — The Raven. Snow-Bound, Miles Standish — 
Greever 25c 

Types of the Short Story— Heydrick 40c 

Washington. Webster, Lincoln — Denney 30c 



SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

CHICAGO : 623 S. Wabash Ave. NEW YORK : 8 Eait 34th Street 



ESSAYS 
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 



EDITED BY 

RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, L ELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 



SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 






^tx 



Copyright 1918 By 
Scott, Foresman and Company 



NOV -5 1918 



ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY 

EDITION BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
CHICAGO. U.S.A. 



Ci.A5(lfi459 






k CONTENTS 

*^ • PAGE 

. Introduction o 

t; Bacon 

. ^ '. Of Truth . '^ 19 

g^ \/0f Revenge ^ 22 

,T Of Wisdom for a Man's Self 24 

Of Dispatch . . .25 

v^ Of Friendship 2d 

Of Discourse 37 

^ >/0f Riches 39 

^^ Of Youth and Age 43 

. Of Studies ^ 46 

Characters 
Overs uRY 

A Wise Man 49 

Joseph Hall 

V He IS A Happy Man > . . . . . • .50 
John Earle 

A Young Man 54 

A Good Old Man 55 

A Tedious Man . . . . . . . .56 

Butler 

A Romance-Writer ....... 57 

Steele 

"^Mr. BiCKERSTAFF Visits A Friend V 59 

The Art of Conferring Benefits . . . . . 65 

/A Fine Gentleman . 68 

Addison , 

^Opera Lions .r .72 

Westminster Abbey 76 

^True and False Humor v . 80 

The Vision of Mirzah 84 

Johnson 

The Revolutions of a Garret 90 

The Multiplication of Books 95 

Goldsmith 

A Service at St. Paul's . . . . . . .99 

vThe Character of Beau Tibbs v( 102 

Lamb 

^/ A Chapter ON Ears . \ 110 

Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 118 

Dream Children: A Reverie 124 

•^ The Praise OF Chimney-Sweepers .' 129 

/ A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig 138 

•Old China 146 

i/TiiE Superannuated Man . . . . . . .153 

Preface by a Friend of the Late Elia .... 162 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Hazlitt 

On Going a Journey I6ii 

The Fight . >' 180 

Sir Walter Scott 190 

On the Conversation of Authors \ . . . . 198 

Leigh Hunt 

On the Graces and Anxieties of Pig-Driving . > . . 209 
Spring and Daisies 213 

De Quincey 

On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth^ . . .221 
Introduction to the World of Strife . . . . 227 

Macaulay 

Milton and the Puritans / 242 

Carlyle 

Shakespeare 257 

Labor 273 

Newman 

The Educated Man ^ 278 

The Gentleman . 279 

The Great Writer . 281 

Ruskin 

St. Mark's Cathedral 283 

The White-Thorn Blossom . 290 

Thackeray 

Tunbridge Toys . 307 

Arnold 

Sweetness and Light . . 316 

Stevenson 

On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places . . .331 

Walking Tours 340 

Aes Triplex . . . 349 

Washington Irving 

The Art of Bookmaking 360 

Emerson 

Love 369 

Heroism 382 

Character 396 

Curtis 

My Chateaux . 414 

Holmes 

Boating 435 

Thoreau 

Walking 443 



INTRODUCTION 

The term essay is used loosely of many different kinds of 
literature, but almost always means a relatively short prose 
composition of an expository character. It may exist for 
some useful purpose, and resemble a brief treatise; or, at the 
opposite extreme, it may be wholly concerned with pleasurable 
talk about personal or even trivial things. Upon its subject- 
matter, then, there are practically no limits at all. For the 
purposes of knowledge, we are likely to value most highly the 
essay which is most impersonal or objective, — that is, which 
emphasizes the subject under consideration and not the one con- 
sidering it; for the purposes of pure literature, that essay is 
usually best which shows most of the writer^s personality. 

Essays may be conveniently classified in three groups: (1) 
the gnomic or aphoristic, (2) the personal or familiar, and 
(3) the didactic or critical. Those of the first type are chiefly 
made up of wise sayings or aphorisms. To see how an essaj'' 
of this character naturally comes into existence, one has only 
to look at the Book of Proverbs in the Bible. The greater 
portion of that book is made up of detached aphorisms, or 
small groups of them dealing with a single subject; but at 
times something like a connected essay is developed, as in the 
account of the Virtuous Woman in the last chapter. Essays 
of the second type are accounts of a subject from the dis- 
tinctive standpoint of the writer, — representing, it may be, his 
mere likes and dislikes, or some passing mood to which he 
wishes to give expression. As has already been suggested, this 
is the kind likely to be valued most highly from the literary 
point of view. Essays of the third type undertake to discuss 
a subject with critical judgment, representing not merely the 

5 



6 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

writer's taste but also facts which he can substantiate and 
theories which he can make appear reasonable. Of this type 
the higher class of book-review is a familiar example. 

The word essay properly means "an attempt/' and originally 
implied that the writer set out, with more or less modesty or 
informality, to open up a subject rather than to discuss it 
with formal completeness. It is from the French language 
that we get the w^ord, and it was a Frenchman who first applied 
it in this way. Of course there had been compositions which we 
might well call essays, in one sense or another, in ancient times ; 
Plutarch wrote them in Greek, and Cicero and Seneca in Latin. 
But the form was not a w^ell recognized one, except in con- 
nection with serious attempts to expound a subject for moral 
or philosophic purposes. It was Montaigne, a Frenchman of 
the sixteenth century, who first hit upon the idea of devoting 
himself to the writing of short compositions which, though 
they might deal with serious subjects, would be chiefly the 
result of his individual living, reading, and thinking; and he 
called them Essays. Though he had been a man of affairs, he 
retired from active life while still under forty, to live "in quiet 
and reading," and in 1580 published the first edition of the 
essays in which he had noted down the fruits of these quiet 
years. In his prefatory address "To the Reader" he gave 
warning that in making his book "I have proposed unto myself 
no other than a familiar and a private end: I have no respect 
or consideration at all either to thy service or to my glory." 
His principal subject, he went on to say, was himself. "I 
desire therein to be delineated in mine own genuine, simjDle, 
and ordinary fashion." "Myself am the groundwork of my 
book. It is then no ^reason thou shouldest employ thy time 
about so frivolous and vain a subject." This Avhimsical preface 
strikes at once the keynote of the familiar essay, which Mon- 
taigne thus invented and of which he is still regarded as the 
chief master. 

Montaigne's essays were soon translated into . English, and 



INTRODUCTION 7 

found perhaps as many readers across the Channel as at home. 
But before the translation had been published, Francis Bacon 
took Montaigne's term "essay^' for the title of a little book 
of ten discourses on serious subjects, such as "Study/' 
"Expense/' "Honor and Reputation/' and the like, which he 
published in 1597. Thus the modern English essay was born. 
In 1612 a second edition raised the number of Bacon's essays 
to thirty-eight, and a third, in 1625, to fifty-eight. Most of 
these, however, are quite different from the Montaigne type; 
they belong to our first class, the aphoristic, and represent 
Bacon's desire to bring together a collection of sound maxims 
for those who wished to study the art of prudent and success- 
ful living. In a few cases, as in his essay on Gardens, one 
finds something of the other type, getting a glimpse of the 
more intimate personality of the writer ; but for the most part, 
in reading Bacon's essays, we remember the formal Elizabethan 
statesman, with starched ruff and serious face, teaching worldly 
wisdom in something like the manner of the ancient sages. 

The seventeenth century saw a number of other collections 
of essays, largely of the serious didactic sort. Sir William 
Cornwallis, a contemporary of Bacon's, published his in 1600 
and later; Owen Felltham issued his in 1620, under the title 
Resolves; Abraham Cowley, one of the leading poets of the 
middle years of the century, included his in his collected works 
of 1668; Sir William Temple, a statesman of the court of 
Charles the Second, published his under the name Miscellanea 
in 1680. In this reign of Charles the Second an important 
new type of essay was developed by John Dryden, the 
leading man of letters of the age; namely, the type devoted to 
literary criticism. Most of Dry den's essays were much longer 
than those of the earlier period, and he wrote them originally 
as prefaces to his various poetical works, explaining and 
defending his literary principles and methods. The best of 
them, however, the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, was published 
separately, in the form of a dialogue, in which three gentlemen 



8 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

were represented as discussing the liistory of the drama in 
friendly conversation. 

During the seventeenth century, again, Englishmen were 
fond of a kind of composition which may be viewed as a spe- 
cial form of the essay, — that is, the ^^charaeter." This type was 
not new; indeed it is usually traced to the invention of the 
Greek philosopher Theophrastus (of the fourth century b.c.)> 
who portrayed typical faults and foibles in the form of 
descriptions of type-personages called "The Grumbler," 
"The Boastful Man,'' and the like. In 1608 Joseph Hall 
adopted this method in his Characters of Vices and Virtues; 
in 1614 a collection appeared written by Sir Thomas Over- 
bury and some of his friends; in 1628 John Earle pub- 
lished his Microcosmo graphic, or a Piece of the World 
Discovered in Essays and Characters; and in the latter part 
of the century Samuel Butler, best known as the author 
of the poem Hudihras, wrote a series of witty "characters" 
w^hich were not published till after his death. It is not pos- 
sible to say with exactness how much this peculiar form 
influenced the growth of the essay, but it is clear that the 
art of the "character" is not dissimilar, in its blend of humor 
and moralizing, to the spirit of the famous essays of Addison 
and Steele in the next century. It might also be noted that 
the formal epistle, which was a recognized literary form from 
the days of classical antiquity to the seventeenth century, had 
much in common with the essay. Not many English writers 
attained special distinction in this form, but the letters of 
James Howell, published in 1645-55 as Epistolce Ho-Elianoe, 
show how the purposes of the essay were served by the writing 
of letters intended for general reading as well as for the person 
originally addressed. 

In the eighteenth century the essay was in large degree the 
product of journalism. That is, the growth of the periodical 
press gave a new opportunity for the writer of brief exposi- 
tory discourses on almost any subject, and a new reading 



INTRODUCTION 9 

public was being rapidly developed which could be reached 
in this way for various practical ends. Many of the new 
periodical essays were of a purely political or otherwise non- 
literary character; perhaps the first man to write them abun- 
dantly and successfully was Daniel Defoe, author of Rohinson 
Crusoe. But it was Steele and Addison who developed the 
form in a way suited not merely for temporary ends but for 
lasting literary significance, and their two chief periodicals, 
the Tatler and the Spectator (founded in 1709 and 1711 respec- 
tively), exerted the most important single influence on the 
essay which could easily be named. 

Richard Steele, in beginning the Tatler^ doubtless thought of 
the undertaking at first merely as a variety of the ordinary 
news- journal. These journals, in many cases, had come to be 
associated with particular London coffee-houses, social centers 
characteristic of the time, and in the first number of his new 
journal Steele made playful use of the fact in the announce- 
ment : "All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment 
shall be under the article of Whitens Chocolate-house; poetry, 
under that of Will's Coffee-house; learning, under the title 
of Grecian; foreign and domestic news you will have from 
St. James's Coffee-house; and what else I shall on any other 
subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment." Very 
soon, however, the elements of current news and of miscel- 
laneous reading-matter took a smaller and smaller place, and 
the real function of the Tatler was seen to be the publication 
of Steele's personal discussions of manners and morals, — such 
questions as family life, scolding, dueling, party feeling, 
fashionable hours, and the like, furnishing his most character- 
istic topics. Presently the editor's old friend Joseph Addison 
became his collaborator, and under his influence the more 
serious elements of the journal were still more emphasized. 
The tone of the Tatler essays was partly determined by the 
fact that they were represented as the work of a person by 
the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, a whimsical old gentleman who 



10 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

went about London noting matters for comment. This, it 
will be noticed, brought about an important combination of 
moods or methods, — that of the serious didactic essay, made 
for a useful end, and that of the familiar essay, representing 
individual fancies and experiences. The second journal, the 
Spectator, from the first frankly devoted each number to a 
single essay, of a suitable length to be read at the breakfast- 
table; the writer was now supposed to be a gentleman called 
simply '^the Spectator," whose character Addison sketched 
in the first number. Other characters were also devised, as 
companions in his experiences, representing different types of 
English life; of these the most famous is Sir Roger de 
Coverley, who was gradually developed to the position of a 
character in a work of fiction. The papers of this sort show, 
therefore, how the essay sometimes tends to pass over into 
the field of the story. But the typical Spectator essay was 
even more didactic than in the case of the Tatler, dealing with 
problems of morals, manners, or literature, though familiar 
in tone and popular in appeal. "I shall be ambitious," wrote 
Addison, "to have it said of me that I have brought philosophy 
out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in 
clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses." The 
journal ran to 555 numbers, of which Steele appears to have 
written some 236 and Addison 274, the remainder being con- 
tributed by ♦their friends. The essays were also bound up 
for sale in book form, and exerted an extraordinary influence 
on journalism and the art of the essay for a century following; 
they were widely imitated not only in England, but also in 
France, Germany, and even Russia. 

The most important successors of Addison and Steele in the 
periodical essay were Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith, 
the leading prose writers of the later eighteenth century. 
Dr. Johnson issued a journal called The Rambler, from 1750 
to 1752, made up almost wholly of his essays, and again, from 
1758 to 1760, contributed a series called "The Idler" to a 



INTRODUCTION 11 

newspaper. But although on the serious side of life he was 
as sound a critic as Addison, he was not possessed of the 
lightness of touch, the deftness of familiar style, which had 
so distinguished the Spectator; hence few modem readers 
care to penetrate the heaviness of his style — ^which some- 
times reminds one of the thick folds of an elephant's skin — 
to the substance of his essays. Goldsmith was much happier 
in following the Spectator tradition; indeed in the happy-go- 
lucky facility of both his life and his style he is more like 
Steele than Addison. He began his work in the periodical 
essay in 1759, in a little journal called The Bee, which lasted 
only eight weeks; but his chief reputation in the form depends 
on the series of papers called "The Citizen of the World," 
contributed to the Public Ledger in 1760. These were repre- 
sented as letters written by a Chinaman, named Lien Chi 
Altangi, temporarily residing in London, who undertook to 
describe the course of English life and manners to a friend 
at home. The idea was not a new one; Addison himself had 
used it in a well-known paper presenting the views of some 
'^Indian Kings" -who had visited England, and in 1757 Horace 
Walpole had published "A Letter from Xo Ho." But Gold- 
smith developed the idea fully, and in describing the experi- 
ences of the imagined writer from day to day in London he 
gave the familiar essay the most distinctive form it had 
acquired for many years. Sometimes, as in the two papers 
on "Beau Tibbs," Goldsmith's essay closely approaches the 
methods of fiction, as we have seen was true of some of 
Addison's and Steele's. 

In the early j^ears of the nineteenth century the essay was 
again strongly affected by certain developments in periodical 
literature. We must once more distinguish between the familiar 
type and the critical, for which new opportunities were fur- 
nished by two different kinds of journal, the magazine and 
the critical review. Blackwood^ s Magazine was founded in 
1817, the London Magazine in 1820; and both of them, espe- 



12 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

cially the latter, did much to develop the essay of the more 
informal kind. With the former is especially associated the 
work of John Wilson, whose pen-name was ^^Christopher 
North." Wilson wrote very abundantly, and through a long 
series of years, but rarely put his compositions into the brief 
and finished form characteristic of the true essay; one there- 
fore finds his most interesting work in the rambling talks 
of the Nodes Amhrosianoe (conversations called "Ambrosial 
Nights") rather than in pieces which can be selected for 
separate printing. The London Magazine had the honor of 
printing some of the best work of the essayists Hazlitt and 
De Quincey, and, above ail, the Elia Essays of Charles Lamb. 
There was also a group of periodicals edited by the brothers 
John and Leigh Hunt; and for these Leigh Hunt, as well as 
his friend Hazlitt and other essayists, wrote informal papers 
on both literature and life. The result was a larger body of 
writing in this form than had been seen before at one time, 
and its quality remains unexcelled. 

Charles Lamb, by common consent, is the chief master of 
the English familiar essay, and the most brilliant practitioner 
in that form since Montaigne. For this type, as we have 
seen, individual personality counts most, and Lamb chanced 
to have just the personality required for the finest results: 
he was whimsical in his tastes, sometimes fantastic in imagina- 
tion, yet always showed a sound judgment which penetrated 
his foibles with solid wisdom. He was a great reader, and 
had the art of pouring into his writing the flavor of the 
masters of English prose, without seeming to write in any 
other style than his own. Above all, he was like a child in 
the simple and curious interest which he showed in people 
and things. Hence whatever he wrote of became interesting 
when seen through his eyes, and, whether he makes the reader 
grow serious or smiling, his personality remains charmingly 
companionable. William Hazlitt, his contemporary in the 
same field, is like Lamb in the richness of his interest and 



INTRODUCTION 13 

in the skill with which he brings together in the essay form 
the results of his reading and his personal experiences. His 
personality, however, is less agreeable; he was a somewhat 
fretful and wayward person, who, falling short of the sweet 
and sound character of Lamb, falls short correspondingly in 
his work. Moreover, he did not have the art of doing finely 
finished work in brief space, but let his pen run on with 
little sense of definite plan or end. Hence one of his essays 
is like a piece of tapestry of no definite pattern, which can 
therefore be cut into lengths of varying dimensions without 
injury; whereas one of Lamb's is more likely to resemble a 
tapestry complete in itself. Yet despite these things, Hazlitt 
is an essayist of great importance, and the substance of his 
writings is so full and varied that one may take them up 
day after day for many days, always certain of coming upon 
ideas fresh and worth while. The third of these magazine 
essayists of the period, Leigh Hunt, is like Lamb in his amia- 
bility, and like Hazlitt in the rambling and uncertain quality 
of his art. His essays are almost always agreeable, but rarely 
the very best of their kind. 

The other type of periodical, the critical, is represented 
chiefly by the Edinburgh Review and the Quarterly Review^ 
founded respectively in 1802 and 1809. These journals devoted 
themselves chiefly to book notices, but they made of them 
much more than brief descriptions; those who wrote the 
reviews were encouraged to develop them into extended dis- 
cussions of whatever subject was suggested by the book in 
hand. The result was a new type of essay. Of the review 
editors the greatest was Francis Jeffrey, who was connected 
with the Edinburgh from its beginning until 1829; his own 
critical essays are among the most readable of the period. 
In 1825, however, he found a young contributor whose fame 
soon surpassed his own. This was Thomas Babington Macau- 
lay, who began his career with a review of a recently dis- 
covered work of Milton's, from which he branched out, 



14 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

according to the accepted fashion, into a full essay on Milton 
and his times. When Jeffre^^ had read the manuscript, he is 
reported to have said, "The more I think, the less I can 
conceive where you picked up that style !'' Henceforth Macau- 
lay became the Edinburgh's leading reviewer, and he remains 
the most widely read English essayist of the critical type. 
Almost all his essays, one will see by looking into a col- 
lective edition, were book reviews in their origin, but were 
developed into brilliant discussions of the principal subject, 
overflowing with the riches .of Macaulay^s mind ; for he was an 
enormous reader, and had the most retentive memory of any 
modern writer. He was particularly interested in the historj^ 
and the biography of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth 
centuries — the period treated in his History of England; and it 
is in his essays which concern this same period that his most 
valuable work is found. Macaulay was a brilliant public 
speaker too, and combines something of the dogmatic clear- 
ness and force of an orator with the more usual style of the 
essayist. 

Thomas De Quincey was equally a magazinist and a reviewer ; 
he wrote wdth brilliancy of both his own experiences and 
literature, and so fluently and abundantly that he came to be 
called "the great contributor." His most famous personal 
essay, the "Confessions of an Opium-Eater,'' was rather too 
long to conform to the usual standards of the essay, and he 
later expanded it into an entire book. What has been said 
of Hazlitt, indeed, applies to De Quincey even more: he 
rarely thought of the essay form as setting definite bounds 
to his composition, but wrote on and on in colloquial fashion, 
never systematic, always fluent and clever. In consequence, 
one usually reads him in fragments^ as one drops into a room 
to listen to a brilliant conversationalist, knowing that it matters 
comparatively little when one comes in or goes out. 

Both Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin, the leading prose 
writers of the mid-nineteenth century, are also better known 



INTRODUCTION 15 

as miscellaneous writers than as essayists in the stricter sense. 
Carlyle wrote a number of essays of the book-review type, 
of which those on the poet Burns and on BoswelPs Life of 
Johnson are the chief; but his most characteristic work was 
done in books, like Sartor Resartus or Past and Present^ which 
must be read pretty thoroughly to be well understood, though 
many of their chapters may be viewed separately as essays on 
moral and social themes. Ruskin never contributed to the 
magazines, nor set out to write essays at all. He wrote lectures, 
treatises, and letters, always designed to enforce some truth 
respecting art, ethics, or society, or to awaken his readers to 
more vivid views of both the physical and spiritual world. 
There is not, then, a single distinctive essay among his many 
works; but numerous passages stand out in the reader^s 
memory with almost all the qualities of the essay, — such as 
the famous account of the two cathedrals, English and Vene- 
tian, included in this colltction, a passage which in its original 
setting is merely incidental to Ruskin's exposition of the 
qualities of various types of architecture. If we may call 
him an essayist, then of all our essayists he shows the most 
remarkable combination of the methods of poetry and of 
prose; for he is like the poets in loving beautiful words and 
images for their own sake, and in expressing his personal feel- 
ings with great intensity, while at the same time, like the prose 
writers, he has in view some practical and didactic end. 

The chief Victorian novelists also wrote essays by the way. 
Those of George Eliot are of the serious critical type, written 
for the great reviews. Those of Dickens and Thackeray are 
chiefly of the informal familiar type, often close to the border 
of fiction; Dickens's were written for his periodicals. House- 
hold Words and All the Year Bound, and Thackeray's for the 
Cornhill Magazine during the period of his editorship. 

In the latter part of the nineteenth century two English 
writers attained distinction in different forms of the essay, — 
Matthew Arnold in the critical type, and Robert Louis Steven- 



16 ESSAYS—ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

son in the familiar. Arnold, like Ruskin, was always disposed 
to teach, and in both literary and social criticism he exerted 
a strong influence on thoughtful men of his time. His Essays 
in Criticism (published in two collections, 1865 and 1888) 
are perhaps the finest specimens of the review essay in the 
modern period, while in the several chapters of the book 
called Culture and Anarchy he applies the essay method to 
the whole question of the art of living. Stevenson, on the 
other hand, viewed the essay like the romance, as a means of 
recreation, and revived the familiar form of it more suc- 
cessfully than anyone had done since the days of Lamb. His 
success, of course, was due to the same cause as Lamb's — the 
unmistakable charm of his personality, which made the mere 
writing down of himself a thing worth while. He began his 
work as an essayist while still an undergraduate at Edinburgh, 
and first attained distinction in the Travels with a Donkey^ 
diary-like sketches of a tour in the* south of France. Later 
essays appeared in various periodicals, and were collected 
in the volumes called Virginihus Puerisque, Familiar Studies of 
Men and Books j and Memories and Portraits (1881 to 1887). 
In America the writing of essays began when the Spectator 
type was still the chief model in men's minds, and Washington 
Irving followed this type in the essays of his Sketch-Book 
(published 1820) so agreeably that he found many readers 
in Great Britain as well as in his own land. Emerson, how- 
ever, was the earliest American essayist to attain a place of 
the first importance, and he remains our most distinguished 
name in the field of the essay. The most striking character- 
istic of his essays is their return to the method of the aphoristic 
form; in this sense they are more like Bacon's than those of 
any other modern writer. The reason for this is not that 
Emerson set out to write in the manner of Bacon, or of anyone 
else, but that his method of thought made him emphasize the 
separate sentence rather than the whole composition. He saw 
truths one at a time, and, instead of undertaking to argue 



INTRODUCTION 17 

about them, or to build up a careful expository structure to 
make them clear, he simply stated them, like an oracle or a 
prophet, hoping that the truth in men^s minds would recognize 
them instinctively. He knew as well as any one that the 
result was a style which could not be thought a model of 
coherence. ^^Here I sit and read and write,'' he once said, 
I'Vith very little system, and as far as regards composition 
■with the most fragmentary result; paragraphs incompressi- 
;ble, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle." In reading 
one of Emerson's essays, then, one must not expect to go from 
one definite point to another along a line of thought, but 
.rather to move around and around the principal theme, view- 
'ing it from many rewarding points of view. 

Of the other New England writers of the same period, 
Henry David Thoreau was most like Emerson, and indeed 
viewed himself in some sense as a disciple of "the sage of 
Concord." Yet he lived very much his own life, and wrote 
like no one else. Thoreau wrote no separate essays of great 
distinction; but the chapters of his chief book, Walderij and 
of his other books dealing with the life of the spirit as he 
lived it out-of-doors, have some of the fine qualities of both 
the serious and the familiar essay. Contemporary with these 
two men of Concord were two at Cambridge, Lowell and 
Holmes. James Russell Lowell may be regarded as the chief 
of American critical essayists; he wrote on many subjects, 
but most intimately and effectively on literature, in the volumes 
called Among my Boohs (1870-76). Oliver Wendell Holmes 
wrote no essays in the stricter sense, but in his Autocrat 
papers he developed the method of the essay in the free 
manner of conversation, and sometimes introduced passages 
[which have the character of independent compositions, like 
that included in the present collection. These papers were 
first contributed to the Atlantic Monthly and then published 
in the volume called The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Tahle, 
a title which represents a personality — partly fictitious, partly 



18 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

Holmes^s own — as original and charming as the Spectator 
himself. 

American journalism has not produced much important work 
in the field of the essay. Perhaps the most distinguished name 
in this connection is that of George William Curtis, a man 
of letters who combined something of the courtliness of the 
old school with a keen sense of the significant qualities of 
contemporary life. For many years his editorial contribu- 
tions to Harper's Weekly maintained a high standard of social 
criticism; while on the lighter side his sketches in Potiphar 
Papers and Pi'ue and I (1853 and 1856) hover charmingly 
on the border-line between the essay and fiction. Charles 
Dudley Warner in like manner blended the serious and the 
familiar with some distinction in such essays as his Backlog 
Studies (1872). We cannot undertake here to follow the 
essay into the work of our own contemporaries; yet one 
name may be added which links the nineteenth century witli . 
the twentieth — that of Mr. William Dean Howells. Best ! 
kno^vn as a novelist, Howells has also done admirable and i 
delightful work in the essay, both of the critical and the 
familiar sort. 

In general, when we consider this form with reference to 
the present time, we observe that, like all other literary types, 
it is not now maintained in any traditional form for its ow^n 
sake, but changes and reappears in ways characteristic of the 
demands of the new generation. The old-time formal essay, 
whether critical or personal, tends to disappear; on the other 
hand, the continued grow^th of journalism maintains various 
kinds of periodical essay, from the comparatively brief edi- 
torial to the more serious critical review. Indeed the essay 
form is so flexible, so adaptable to the spirit of different peri- 
ods, that there is no reason to expect any decline of its 
importance so long as literature exists at all. 



FRANCIS BACON 

[Francis Bacon was born in London in 1561. He looked forward 

I to a diplomatic career, and, after completing his formal edu- 

I cation at Cambridge, went to Paris in the suite of Sir Amyas 

Paulet, ambassador to France. Returning to England, he was 

made Member of Parliament for Middlesex (1595), and thereafter 

; rose rapidly in political life, becoming successively Attorney- 

' General, Lord Keeper, Lord Chancellor and Baron Verulam, and 

' Viscount St. Albans. His political enemies having sought out 

: means to attack him, he was proved (and confessed)^ to have 

I received gifts from some whose suits were before him as Lord 

I Chancellor, and, being convicted of bribery, was sentenced to a 

fine of 40,000 pounds and deposed from office. This tragic end of 

his public career led Pope to describe Bacon in the famous but 

grossly exaggerated phrase, "the wisest, brightest, meanest of 

1 mankind." Meantime Bacon had devoted much of his time to 

I literature and philosophy, and his monumental work, the Novum 

Organum (or "New Instrument" for the discovery of truth), first 

I published in Latin in 1620, is one of the landmarks in the history 

I of both philosophy and science. Bacon died in 1626. For his 

I essays, see the Introduction, p. 7.] 

OF TRUTHi 

What is truth P said jesting^ Pilate, and would not stsij 

for an answer. Certainly there be tliat^ delight in giddiness,'^ 

and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in 

I thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of 

(philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain 

discoursing wits which are of the same veins,^ though there 

1. This essay, which appeared first in the collection of 1625, 
!was given the place of honor in that volume, as Essay I. 

2. What is truth? See John 18: 38. 

3. jestlngr. Scoffing. 

4. there "be tliat. There are those who. The reference is espe- 
cially to the "sect" of Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher who flourished 
300 B.C., and who, since he denied the possibility of human knowl- 
edge, was called the founder of the skeptical school. 

5. giddiness. Levity or inconstancy. 

6. discoursing* . . . veins. Wits who still argue in the same 
way. 

19 



20 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. 
But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in 
finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it impos- 
eth^ upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but 
a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the 
later schools^ of the Grecians examineth the matter, and 
is at a"^stand to think what should be in it, that men should 
love lies ; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets ; 
nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie^s sake. 
But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open day- 
light, that doth not show the masques and mummeries and 
triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle- 
lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that 
showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a 
diamond or carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A 
mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, 
that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, 
flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one Avould,^ 
and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of 
men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indispo- 
sition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers,^^ 
in great severity, called poesy vinum dcemonum^ because it 
filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of 
a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but 
the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, 
such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are 
thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, 
which only doth judge itself, teach eth that the inquiry of 
truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge 



7. imposetli. Exerts a forcible influence. 

8. One of the later schools. Lucian of Samosata, of the second 

century a.d. 

9. as one would. At pleasure, unrestrained. 

10. One of the fathers. St. Jerome had called the songs of poets 
"dsemonum cibus", "food of demons"; and St. Augustine referred 
to poetry as "vinum erroris", "the wine of sin." Bacon may have 
confused the two passages. 



baco:n » 21 

of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, 
which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human 
nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, 
was the light of the sense ; the last was the light of reason ; and 
his sabbath w^ork, ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. 
First he breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos; 
then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he 
breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The 
poet^^ that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to 
the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure to stand 
upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure 
to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the 
adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the 
standing upon the vantage ground of truth (sl hill not to be 
commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene J, 
and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, 
in the vale below: so^^ always that this prospect^^ be with 
pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven 
upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in 
providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. 

To pass from theological and philosophical truth, to the 
1 truth of civil business : it will be acknowledged, even by those 
that practice it not, that clear and round^^ dealing is the 
honor of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like 
allay^^ in coin of gold and silver; which may make the metal 
work the better, but it embaseth^^ it. For these winding 
and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which 
goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There 



11. The poet. Lucretius, who died 55 b.c. His "sect" was that 
of the Epicureans, whose doctrines he wrote his great poem 

I De Reritm Natiira to expound. The quotation is from Book ii, 
lines 1-13. 

12. so. Provided. 

13. prospect. Survey. 

14. round. Fair. 

15. allay. Alloy. 

16. emliasetli it. Debases its value. 

f 



22 ' ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found 
false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne^ ^ saith 
prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie 
should be such a disgTace- and such an odious charge; saith 
he, If it he ivell weighed^ to say that a man lieth is as much 
to say as that he is hrave towards God and a coward toivards 
men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely 
the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot pos- 
sibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last 
peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of 
men; it being foretold that, when Christ cometh,^^ he shall 
not find faith upon the earth. 



OF REVENGE! 

Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's 
nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.* For as 
for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law ; but the revenge 
of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in 
taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in 
passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to 
pardon. And Salomon,^ I am sure, saith. It is the glory of 
a man to pass hy an offense. That which is past is gone, and 
irrevocable; and wise men have enough to do with things 
present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with them- 
selves, that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a 
wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself 
profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore why 



17. Montaigne. See the Introduction, page 6. The quotation 
is from the 18th essay of Montaigne's second Bool^; he derived 
it from Plutarch's Lives. 

18. wlieu Clirist cometh., etc. See Luke 18: 8. Bacon interprets 
the word "faith" in the sense of "fidelity" rather than in the 
New Testament sense. 

1. First published in 1625 as Essay IV. 

2. Salomon. See Proverbs 19:11. 



BACON 23 

should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than 
me? And if any man should do wrong merely out of ill 
nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which prick 
and scratch because they can do no other. The most tolerable 
sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to 
remedy; but then let a man take heed the revenge be such as 
there is no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still before- 
hand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, 
are desirous the party should know whence it eometh: this 
is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be not so 
much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent: but 
base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the 
dark. Cosmus, duke of Florence, had a desperate saying 
against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs 
were unpardonable: You shall read (saith he) that we are 
commanded to forgive our eyiemies; hut you never read that 
we are commanded to forgive our friends. But yet the spirit 
of Job^ was in a better tune: Shall we (saith he) take good 
at God's hands y and not he content to take evil also? And so 
of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that 
studieth revenge keeps his own wounds gTeen, which other- 
wise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the 
most part fortunate; as that for the death of Caesar; for the 
death of Pertinax;* for the death of Henry the Third^ of 
France; and many more. But in private revenges it is not 
so. Nay rather, vindicative^ persons live the life of witches; 
who as they are mischievous, so end they infor-tunate. 



3. spirit of Job. See Job 2:10. 

4. Pertinax. A Roman emperor who was murdered by the 
Pretorian Guard in the year 193 a.d. ; the soldiers were disgraced 
and banished by Septimius Severus. 

5. Henry tlie Third was assassinated in 1589 by a monk, 
Jacques Clement, who was himself slain on the spot by the king's 
guards. 

6. vindicative. Vindictive. 



24 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AINIERICAN 

OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF^ 

An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd^ thing 
in an orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great 
lovers of themselves waste^ the public. Divide with reason 
between self-love and society; and be so true to thyself, as 
thou be not false to others, specially to thy king and country. 
It is a poor center of a man's actions, himself. It is right 
earth;* for that only stands fast upon his own center, 
whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens move 
upon the center of another, which they benefit. The referring 
of all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; 
because themselves are not only themselves, but their good 
and evil is at the peril of the public fortune. But it is a 
desperate evil in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a repub- 
lic. For whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he 
crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs be often 
eccentric to^ the ends of his master or state. Therefore let 
princes, or states, choose such servants as have not this 
mark; except they mean their ser\dce should be made but the 
accessary. That which maketh the effect more pernicious 
is that all proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough 
for the servant's good to be preferred before the master's: 
but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the 
servant shall carry things against a great good of the master's. 
And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, 
generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set a 
bias^ upon their bowl, of their own pettv^ ends and envies, 

1. First published in 1612; called Essay XXIII in 1625. The 
title may be paraphrased, "Of Self-Seeking." 

2. slirewd. Mischievous. 

3. waste. Despoil. 

4. rig'ht earth. Merely earthy. The phrase is explained by 
the following passage, based on the old Ptolemaic astronomy; the 
earth, the center of our universe, revolves only about its own 
axis, whereas the planets and the sun revolve around it. 

5. eccentric to. Divergent from. 

6. bias. In the game of bowls, a piece of lead inserted at 
one side of the bowl, deflecting it from the straight course. 



BACON 25 

to the overthrow of their master's gi'eat and important afcairs. 
And for the most part, the good such servants receive is after 
the model of their own fortune; but the hurt they sell for 
that good is after the model of their master's fortune. And 
certainly it is the nature of extreme self -lovers, as^ they will 
set an house on fire, and^ it were but to roast their eggs; and 
yet these men many times hold credit with their masters, 
because their study is but to please them and profit them- 
selves; and for either respect^ they will abandon the good of 
their affairs. 

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a 
depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure 
to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of 
the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made 
room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles,^^ that shed tears 
when they would devour. But that which is specially to be 
noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are 
sui amantes sine rivaU,^'^ are many times unfortunate. And 
whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they 
become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy 
of Fortune, whose wings they thought by their self -wisdom 
to have pinioned.^^ 

OF DISPATCH^ 
Affected dispatch^ is one of the most dangerous things to 
business that can be. It is like that which the physicians 

7. as. That. 

8. and. If. 

9. respect. Consideration. 

10. crocodiles. This belief was widespread, and gave rise to 
the still current expression, "crocodile tears." Cf. Shakespeare's 
Henry VI, Part 2, III, i, 226. 

11. sui amantes, etc. "Lovers of themselves without a rival," 

12. pinioned. Clipped. 

1. First published in 1612; Essay XXV in the final collection. 
Bacon uses the term "dispatch" with special reference to public 
business, and his maxims will still be found admirable for the 
consideration of debaters, chairmen, and those in similar 
positions. 

2. affected dispatcli. Exaggerated haste. 



26 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

call pre-digestion, or hasty digestion, which is sure to fill the 
body full of crudities and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore 
measure not dispatch by the times of sitting, but by tlio 
advancement of the business. And as in races it is not the 
large stride or high lift that makes the speed; so in business, 
the keeping close to the matter, and not taking of it too mucli 
at once, procureth dispatch. It is the care of some only to 
come off speedily for the time, or to contrive some false 
periods of business, because^ they may seem men of dispatch. 
But it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by 
cutting off: and business so handled at several sittings or 
meetings goeth commonly backward and forward in an unsteady 
manner. I knew a wise man* that had it for a by -word, when 
he saw men hasten to a conclusion: Stay a little, that we may 
make an end the sooner. 

On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing. For time 
is the measure of business, as money is of wares ; and business 
is bought at a dear hand where there is small dispatch. The 
Spartans and Spaniards^ have been noted to be of small 
dispatch : Mi venga la muerte de Spagna; Let my death 
come from Spain; for then it will be sure to be long in 
coming. 

Give good hearing to those that give the first information 
in business; and rather direct them in the beginning than 
interrupt them in the continuance of their speeches: for he 
that is put out of his own order will go forward and back- 
ward, and be more tedious while he waits upon his memory 
than he could have been if he had gone on in his own course. 
But sometimes it is seen that the moderator is more trouble- 
some than the actor. 



3. "because. That. 

4. a wise man. Sir Amyas Paulet. (See the biographical note 
on Bacon.) 

5. Spaniards. Bacon refers to the same proverb in one of 
his letters, saying: "All which have made the delays of Spain 
to come into a byeword through the world." 



BACON 27 

Iterations^ are commonly loss of time: but there is no such 
gain of time as to iterate often the state of the question; for 
it chase th away many a frivolous speech as it is coming for the 
Long and curious"^ speeches are as fit for dispatch, as a robe or 
mantle with a long train is for race. Prefaces, and passages,* 
and excusations,^ and other speeches of reference to the per- 
son, are gTeat wastes of time; and though they seem to pro- 
ceed of modesty, they are bravery.^ ^ Yet beware of being 
too material,^ ^ when there is any impediment or obstruction 
in men's wills; for preoccupation of mind ever requireth 
preface of speech; like a fomentation^^ ^q make the unguent 
enter. 

Above all things, order, and distribution, and singling out of 
parts, is the life of dispatch; so as the distribution be not too 
subtile : for he that doth not divide^ ^ will never enter well into 
business; and he that divideth too much will never come out 
of it clearly. To choose time is to save time; and an unsea- 
sonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts 
of business: the preparation, the debate or examination, and 
the perfection. Whereof, if you look for dispatch, let the 
middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the 
work of few. The proceeding upon somewhat^^ conceived 
in writing doth for the most part facilitate dispatch; for 
though it should be wholly rejected, yet that negative is more 
pregnant of direction than an indefinite; as ashes are more 
{ generative than dust. 



6. Iterations. Repetitions. 

7. curious. Over-detailed. 

8. passag-es. Digressions. 

9. excusations. Apologies. 

10. 'bravery. Display. 

11. being* too material. Sticking too closely to the mcin subject. 

12. fomentation. A hot application to open the pores. 

13. divide^ Classify, analyze. 

14. somewliat. Sometning. 



28 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

OF FRIENDSHIP! 

It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more 
truth than untruth together in a few words, than in that 
speech, Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild 
beast or a god.^ For it is most true that a naturaP and secret 
hatred and aversation^ towards society, in any man, hath 
somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that 
it should have any character at all of the divine nature; 
except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but 
out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a 
higher conversation:^ such as is found to have been falsely 
and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the 
Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and 
Apollonius of Tyana;^ and truly and really in divers of the 
ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little 
do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. 
For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of 
pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal,''' where there is 
no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little. Magna 
civitaSj magna solitudo;^ because in a great town friends are 
scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most 

1. First published in 1612; rewritten as Essay XXVII for the 
final collection. 

2. Whosoever, etc. From the Politics of Aristotle, Book i. 

3. natural. Untamed. 

4. aversation. Aversion. 

5. conversation. Way of life, intercourse. 

6. Epimenides, etc. All these were men who loved solitude, 
and who were rumored to have intercourse with spiritual powers. 
Epimenides was a Cl-etan poet of the seventh century b.c, who, 
after a long- period of retirement, reappeared with the claim 
that he had slept for fifty years, and assumed the role of one 
inspired. Numa, the traditional first king of Rome, was reputed 
to seek in solitude the counsel of the nymph Egeria. Empedocles, 
a Sicilian philosopher of the fifth century b.c, boasted m^iraculous 
powers conferred on him by the gods. Apollonius, a Greek phi- 
losopher of the first century a.d., spent many years in retirement 
at a temple dedicated to ^^sculapius, and was also said to have 
conversed with the spirit of Achilles at his tomb. 

7. tinkling" cymbal. Cf. i Corinthians 13:1. 

8. Magrna civltas, etc. "A ^eat city, a great solitude." This 
saying is found in the Adagia of Erasmus, and in various classical 
writers. 



BACON 29 

part, which is in less neighborhoods. Bu-t we may go further, 
and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable soli- 
tude to want^ true friends, without which the world is but 
a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whoso- 
ever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for 
friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. 
A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge 
of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions 
of all kind do cause and induce. We know diseases of stop- 
pings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; 
and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza^^ 

I to open the liver, steeP^ to open the spleen, flowers of sul- 
phur for the lungs, castoreum^^ for the brain; but no receipt 
openeth the heart, but a true friend, to whom you may 
impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and 
whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of 

" civil shrift^ ^ or confession. 

I It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings 

I and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof 
we speak : so great, as^* they purchase it many times at the 
hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in 
regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their 
subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to 
make themselves capable thereof) thej raise some persons to 
be as it were companions and almost equals to themselves, 
which many times sorteth to^^ inconvenience. The modern 

9. want. Lack. 

10. sarza. Sarsaparilla. 

11. steel. A familiar remedy. Dorothy Osborne, a well-known 
letter-writer of the 17th century, wrote to Sir William Temple: 
"They do so frig-ht me with strange stories of what the spleen 

^ will bring me to in time. . . . To prev-ent this, who would not 
take steel or anything. . . . I do not take the powder, as many 
, do, but only lay a piece of steel in white wine over nig-ht and 
! drink the infusion next morning." 

12. castoreniiL. An oil obtained from a gland of the beaver. 

13. civil slixift. Opposed to a religious shrift, made only in 
the church. 

14. as. That. 

15. sorteth to. Results in. 



30 ESSAYS— EIS^GLISH AND AMERICAN 

languages give unto such persons the name of favorites^ or 
privadoes ;^^' as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. 
But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, 
naming them participes curarum;^'^ for it is that which tieth 
the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not 
by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and 
most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined 
to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves 
have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them 
in the same manner, using the word which is received between 
private men. 

L. Sylla,^^ when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after 
surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted 
himself for Sylla's overmatch. For when he had carried 
the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of 
Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began 
to speak great,^^ Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect 
bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising 
than the sun setting. With Julius Cassar, Decimus Brutus^^ 
had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testa- 
ment for heir in remainder after his nephew; and this was 
the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his 
death. For when Caesar would have discharged the senate, 
in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of 
Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his 
chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate 

16. privadoes. Familiars (Spanish). 

17. participes curarum. Sharers of cares. Bacon appears to 
have found this "Roman namis" in Dion Cassius's History of Rome. 

18. Sylla. Sulla (138-78 e.g.) obtained command of Rome by 
leading its own army ag^ainst the state; his cause was espoused 
by Pompey. In what follows Bacon is inaccurate. According to 
Plutarch, "Pompey required the honor of a triumph, but Sylla 
denied it, alleging that none could enter in triumph into Rome 
but consuls or praetors. . . . All this blanked not Pompey, who 
told him frankly . . . how men did honor the rising not the IJJ 
setting of the sun." (Life of Poimpey, North's translation.) 

19. great. Violently. 

20. Caesar . . . Brutus. See the faithful picture of the rela- 
tions of these men given by Shakespeare in Jiilius Ccosar, based 
on Plutarch's Lives, 



BACON 31 

till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth 
his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is 
recited verbatim in one of Cicero^s Philippics^ calleth him 
veneficay "witch"; as if he had enchanted Cassar. Augustus 
raised Agrippa^^ (though of mean birth) to that height, as, 
when he consulted with Maecenas about the marriage of his 
daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he 
must either marry his daughter to Agrippay or take away his 
life; there was no third way^ he had made him so great. With 
Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus^^ j^^d ascended to that height, as they 
two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius 
in a letter to him saith, Hcec pro amicitid nostra non occul- 
tavi;^^ and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, 
as to a goddess, in respect of the gTeat dearness of friend- 
ship between them two. The like or more was between Sep- 
timius Severus^^ and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest 
son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often 
maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son; and did 
write also in a letter to the senate by these words : I love the 
man so welly as I wish he may over-live^^ me. Now if these? 
princes had been as a Trajan,^^ or a Marcus Aurelius, a man 
might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant 
goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength 



21. AgTippa. Son-in-iaw and minister of Augustus, and one of 
his two chief advisers; the other was Maecenas, a man of great 
wealth, best known as a patron of literature. The anecdote of 
Maecenas's advice respecting the marriage of the princess is from 
Dion Cassius. 

22. Sejanus. A favorite adviser of the emperor Tiberius; put 
to death, however, on being discovered to have conspired against 
his master, in 31 a.d. 

23. Hasc pro, etc. "On account of our friendship I have not con- 
cealed these things." (Tacitus, Annals, Book iv.) 

24. Septimius Sevenis, An African soldier (146-211 a.d.), who 
won the Roman throne by overthrowing his rivals with the aid 
of his troops. Plautianus was a fellow-townsman, to whom he 
virtually made over the government; like Sejanus, however, the 
favorite conspired against the master, and was executed in 203. 

25. over-live. Survive. 

26. Trajan . . . Marcus Aurelius. Emperors distinguished for 
their moderation and kindliness. 



32 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, 
as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found 
their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal 
men) but as an half piece,^^ except they might have a friend 
to make it entire: and yet, which is more, they were princes 
that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not 
supply the comfort of friendship. 

It is not to be forgotten, what Comineus^^ observeth of his 
first master, Duke Charles the Hardy ; namely, that he would 
communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those 
secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on and 
saith that towards his latter time that closeness did impair 
and a little perish^^ his understanding. Surely Comineus 
might have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased 
him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose close- 
ness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras^^ 
is dark, but true; Cor ne edito, ^^Eat not the heart.'' Certainly, 
if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want^^ friends 
to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But 
one thing is most admirable^^ (wherewith I will conclude this 
first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating 
of a mean's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for 
it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is 
no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth 
the more ; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, 
but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth of operation 
upon a man's mind, of like virtue as the alchemists use to 

27. half piece. An allusion to the practice of cutting silver 
pennies in two, when smaller coins were scarce. 

28. Comineus. Philippe de Comines (1445-1509), confidential 
adviser of Cha.rles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, until, in 1472. he 
entered the service of Louis XI of France. (See Scott sQuenhn 
Durzvard for brilliant portraits of all three men.) Later he com- 
posed an important volume of Memoirs. 

29. perish. Cause to decay. 

30. Pytliag-oras. A Greek philosopher of the sixth century b.c. 

31. want. Lack. 

32. admirable. To be wondered at. 



BACON 33 

attribute to their stone^^ for man's body; that it worketh all 
contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. 
But yet, without praying in aid^^ of alchemists, there is a 
manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature. For 
in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural 
action; and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any vio- 
lent impression: and even so is it of minds. 

The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign 
for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For 
friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from 
storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the under- 
standing, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither 
is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man 
receiveth from his friend ; but before you come to that, certain 
it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, 
his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the 
communicating and discoursing with another: he tosseth his 
thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he 
seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, 
he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's 
discourse than by a day's meditation. It was w^eil said by 
Themistocles^^ to the king of Persia, that speech was like 
cloth of ArraSj^^ opened and put ahroad;^'^ ivherehy the 
imagery doth appear in figure ;^^ whereas in thoughts they lie 
hut as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship. 
in opening the understanding, restrained^^ only to such friends 
as are able to give a man counsel (they indeed are best) ; 

33. alchemists' stone. More often called "the philosopher's 
stone," a substance believed to have the power of transmuting 
base metals into gold, and also of prolonging life. 

34. praying- in aid. Craving the assistance; a legal term. 

35. Themistocles. An Athenian general (514-449 b.c), who, 
after being accused of treason by his own people, sought refuge 
with the Persian king Artaxerxes. 

36. cloth of Arras. Art-tapestry (named from the town in 
France where the finest kinds were made). 

37. put abroad. , Spread out or hung. 

38. imag-ery ... in fig-ure. The design is fully revealed. 

39. restrained. Restricted. 



34 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth 
his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a 
stone, which itself cuts not.^^ In a word, a man were better 
relate himself^^ to a statua^^ or picture, than to suffer his 
thoughts to pass in smother/^ 

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, 
that other point, which lieth more open, and f alleth withia 
vulgar^^ observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. 
Heraelitus^^ saith well in one of his enigmas. Dry light is ever 
the best. And certain it is that the light that a man reeeiveth 
by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which 
Cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is 
ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So 
as there is as much difference between the counsel that a 
friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is 
between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there 
is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such 
remedy against A^tterj of a man's self as the liberty of a 
friend. Counsel is of two sorts; the one concerning manners, 
the other concerning business. For the first; the best pre- 
servative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition 
of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account 
is a mediciiie, sometime, too piercing and corrosive. Reading 
good books of morality is a little flat and dead. Observing 
our faults in others is sometimes unproper for our case. But 
the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the 

40. stone wMcli itself cuts not. A proverbial expression drawn 
from Horace. 

41. were Tbetter relate liimself. Would do better to converse. 

42. statua. Statue (the I^atin form). Cf. Shakespeare's Julius 
Ccesar, II, li, 76 and III, ii, 192. 

43. in smother. Stifled. 

44. vulgfar. Common, g-eneral. 

45. Heraclitiis. A Greek philosopher who flourished about 
500 B.C. The v/ords attributed to him are found in Plutarch's 
Life of Romulus. Whatever they orig-inally meant, Bacon uses 
the phrase "dry lig-ht" (and it has ever since been used) to ipiean 
clear intellectual perception, free from the saturating moisture 
(see "infused and drenched," four lines further) of personal 
feeling. 



BACOX 35 

admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what 
gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the 
greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them 
of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune. 
For, as S. James*^ saith, they are as men that look sometimes 
into a glass ^ and presently^'^ forget their own shape and favor. 
As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes 
see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more 
than a looker-on; or that a man in anger is as wise as he 
that hath said over the four-and-twenty letters;*^ or that a 
musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest;^^ 
and such other fond^^ and high imaginations, to think himself 
all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel 
is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think 
that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces, asking 
counsel in one business of one man, and in another business 
of another man; it is well (that is to say, better perhaps than 
if he asked none at all) ; but he runneth two dangers. One, 
that he shall not be faithfully counseled; for it is a rare 
thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have 
counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked^^ to 
some ends which he hath that giveth it. The other, that he 
shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with 
good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of 
remedy ; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought 



46. S. James. See the Epistle of James, 1:23-24. 

47. presently. Immediately, favor. Countenance. 

48. four-and-twenty letters. To run through the alphabet was 
a form of the same process as that recommended in the adage, 
"When angry count a hundred." The letters were numbered as 
twenty-four because u and v were counted as but one letter; so 
also i an j. 

49. musket . . . upon a rest. The musket was a heavy gun 
introduced into the Spanish army by the Duke of Alva; it was 
originally fired from a rest, which the "musketeer" stuck into 
the ground in front of him. 

50. fond. Foolish. 

51. 1>owed and crooked. Bent and perverted. 



36 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unac- 
quainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way 
for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other 
kind; and so cure the disease and kill the patient. But a 
friend that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate^^ will 
beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth 
upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon 
scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead than 
settle and direct. 

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the 
affections, and support of the judgment) followeth the last 
fruit, which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; 
I mean aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. 
Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of 
friendship is to cast^^ and see how many things there are 
which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear 
that it was a sparing speech of the ancients,^^ to say that 
a friend is another himself: for that a friend is far more 
than himself. Men have their time, and die many times 
in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; 
the bestowing^ ^ of a child, the finishing of a work, or the 
like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure 
that the care of those things will continue after him. So 
that a man hath as it were two lives in his desires. A man 
hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where 
friendship is, all offices^^ of life are as it were granted 
to him and his deputy; for he may exercise them by his 
friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, 
with any face or comeliness, say or do himself! A man can 
scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol 

52. estate. Condition. 

53. cast. Consider, count up. 

54. speech of tlie ancients. A widely quoted saying. Bacon 
probably drew it from Cicero's treatise On Friendship, 

55. bestowing'. Giving- in marriage. 

56. offices. Functions. 



BACON 37 

them; a man camiot sometimes brook^^ to supplicate or beg; 
and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful 
in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. 
So again, a man's person hath many proper^^ relations which 
he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a 
father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon 
terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and 
not as it sorteth^^ with the person. But to enumerate these 
things were endless: I have given the rule, where a man 
cannot fitly play his own part: if he have not a friend, lie 
may quit the stage. 

OF DISCOURSE! 

Some in their discourse desire rather commendation of wit, 
in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in 
discerning what is true; as if it were a praise to know what 
might be said, and not what should be thought. Some have 
certain common-places and themes wherein they are good, 
and want^ variety; which kind of poverty is for the most 
part tedious, and, when it is once perceived, ridiculous. The 
honorablest part of talk is to give the occasion; and again 
to moderate^ and pass to somewhat else; for then a man 
leads the dance. It is good, in discourse, and speech of con- 
versation, to vary and intermingle speech of the present occa- 
sion with arguments; tales with reasons; asking of questions 
with telling of opinions; and jest with earnest: for it is a 
dull thing to tire, and, as we say now, to jade^ anything too 
far. As for jest, there be certain things which ought to be 
privileged from it; namely, religion, matteis of state, great 

57. brook. Endure^ 

58. proper. Peculiar to himself. 

59. sorteth.. Suits. 

1. This essay first appeared in 1597; it was enlarged in 1612 
and agrain in 1625, and was eventually numbered XXXII. 

2. want. Lack. 

3. moderate. Sum up the question (like a presiding officer). 

4. jade. Exhaust. 



38 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMEPJCAN 

persons, any man's present business of importance, and any 
<3ase that deservetli pity. Yet there be some that think their 
wits have been asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is 
piquant and to the quick: that is a vein which would be^ 
bridled : 

Parce, puer, stimulis, et fortius iitere loris.^ 

And generally, men ought to find the difference between 
saltness and bitterness. Certainly, he that hath a satirical 
vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need 
be afraid of others' memory. He that questioneth much, 
shall learn much, and content much ; but especially if he apply 
his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh: for 
he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, 
and himself shall continually gather knowledge. But let his 
questions not be troublesome ; for that is fit for a poser. "^ And 
let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak. Nay, 
if there be any that would reign and take up all the time, lei: 
him find means to take them off and to bring others on ; as 
musicians used to do with those that dance too long galliards.^ 
If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are 
thought to know, you shall be thought another time to know 
that you know not. Speech of a man's self ought to be seldom, 
and well chosen. I knew one was wont to say in scorn. He 
must needs he a wise man, he speaks so much of himself: 
and there is but one case wherein a man may commend him- 
self with good grace, and that is in commending virtue in 
another, especially if it be such a virtue whereunto himself 
pretendeth.^ Speech of touch^^ towards others should be 
sparingly used; for discourse ought to be as a field, without 

5. would be. Should be. (Cf. Hamlet, III, iii, 75.) 
6^ Parce, puer, etc. "Boy, spare the spur, and hold the reins 
more tig"htiy." (Ovid, Metamorphoses, ii, 127.) 

7. poser. Examiner; one who sets test questions. 

8. fifalliardB. The g^alliard was a formal but spirited dance. 
9 pretencletli. Lays claim. 

10. Speech of toucli. Personalities. 



BACON 39 

coming home to any man. I knew two noblemen, of the west 
part of England, whereof the one was given to sco:ff, but kept 
ever royal cheer^^ in his house: the other would ask of those 
that had been at the other's table, Tell truly , was there never 
a flout or dry-^ blow given f to which the guest would answer^ 
Such and such a thing passed. The lord would say, 1 thought 
he would mar a good dinner. Discretion of speech is more 
than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we 
deal, is more than to speak in good words or in good order. 
A good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocu- 
tion, shows slowness; and a good reply or second speech, 
without a good settled speech, shov/eth shallowness and weak- 
ness. As we see in beasts, that those that are weakest in the 
course are yet nimblest in the turn; as it is betwixt the grey- 
hound and the hare. To use too many circumstances^^ ere one 
come to the matter, is wearisome; to use none at all, is blunt. 



OF RICHES^- 

I CANNOT call riches better than the baggage of virtue. 
The Roman word is better, impedimenta ; for as the baggage 
is to an army, so is riches to virtue; it cannot be spared nor 
left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea, and the care 
of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory. Of great 
riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; 
the rest is but conceit.^ So saith Salomon:^ Where much is, 
there are many to consume it; and what hath the owner but 
the sight of it ivith his eyes? The personal fruition in any 
man cannot reach to feel great riches: there is a custody of 



11. clieer. Hospitality. 

12. dry. Hard. 

13. circTunstances. Unessential details. 

1. First published in 1612; enlarged in 1625 as Essay XXXIV, 

2. conceit. Imagination. 

3. saitli Salomon. See Ecclesiastes 5:11. 



40 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AlVIERICAN 

them; or a power of dole and donative^ of them; or a fame 
of them; but no solid use to the owner. Do you not see 
what feigned prices are set upon little stones and rarities? 
and what works of ostentation are undertaken, because^ there 
might seem to be some use of great riches ? But then you will 
say, they may be of use to buy men out of dangers or trouble. 
As Salomon saith : Biclies are as a stronghold in the imagina- 
tion of the rich man.^ But this is excellently expressed, that 
it is in imagination, and not always in fact. For certainly 
great riches have sold more men than they have brought out. 
Seek not proud riches, but such as thou may est get justly, 
use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly. Yet 
have no abstract nor friarly'' contempt of them. But distin- 
guish, as Cicero saith® well of Rabirius Posthumus : In studio 
rei ampliflcandce ap par eh at non avaritice prcsdam sed instru- 
Tnentum honitati quceri.^ Hearken also to Salomon, and beware 
of hasty gathering of riches: Qui festinat ad divitias non 
erit insons.^^ The poets feign that when Plutus (which is 
Riches) is sent from Jupiter,^^ he limps and goes slowly; 
but when he is sent from Pluto,^^ he runs and is swift of foot : 
meaning, that riches gotten by good means and just labor 
pace slowly; but when they come by the death of others (as 
by the course of inheritance, testaments, and the like), they 
come tumbling upon a man. But it might be applied likewise 

4. dole and donative. Dealing out (as in charity) and bestow- 
ing (as in bequests, endowments, etc). 

5. because. So that. 

6. Riches are, etc. Proverbs 10:15. 

7. abstract nor friarly. As a matter of principle, or like the 
friars who abjure wealth. 

8. Cicero saith. The speech in which the remark occurs was 
a defence of Posthumus, a famous money-lender accused of extor- 
tion, though the remark itself had reference to another man, 
Curius Rabirius. 

9. In studio rei, etc. "In his desire for increased wealth he 
sought not, it was evident, the gratification of avarice but the 
means of doing good." 

10. Qui festinat, etc. "He that maketh haste to be rich shall 
not be innocent." Proverbs 28:20. 

11. Jupiter . . . Pluto. Rulers, respectively, of the celestial 
and the infernal regions. 



BACON 41 

to Pluto, taking him for the devil. For when riches come 
from the devil (as by fraud and oppression and unjust 
means), they come upon speed.^^ The ways to enrich are 
many, and most of them foul. Parsimony is one of the best, 
and yet is not innocent; for it withholdeth men from works 
of liberality and charity. The improvement of the gTOund 
is the most natural obtaining of riches; for it is our great 
mother's blessing, the earth's; but it is slow. And yet, where 
men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth 
riches exceedingly. I knew a nobleman in England, that 
had the greatest audits^ ^ of any man in my time; a great 
grazier, a gTeat sheep-master, a great timber man, a great 
collier, a great corn^^-master, a great lead-man, and so of iron, 
and a number of the like points of husbandry: so as the 
earth seemed a sea to him, in respect of the perpetual impor- 
tation. It was truly observed by one, that himself came very 
hardly^ ^ to a little riches, and very easily to great riches. 
For when a man's stock is come to that, that he can expect^ ^ 
the prime of markets, and overcome^"^ those bargains which 
for their greatness are few men's money, and be partner in the 
industries of younger men, he cannot but increase mainly.^^ 
The gains of ordinary trades and vocations are honest, and 
furthered by two things chiefly : by diligence, and by a good 
name for good and fair dealing. But the gains of bargains 
are of a more doubtful nature; when men shall wait upon 
others' necessity, broke^^ by servants and instruments to 
draw them on, put off others cunningly that would be better 
chapmen,2o and the like practices, which are crafty and 

12. upon speed. With speed. 

13. audits. Receipts from land. 

14. corn. Grain. 

15. Hardly. With difficulty. 

16. expect. Await. 

17. overcome. Get at, take advantage of. 

18. mainly. Greatly. 

19. broke. Do business. 

20. cliapmea. Traders. 



42 ESSAYS— ENGLISH ANB AMERICAN 

naught.^^ As for the chopping of bargains, when a man 
buys, not to hold, but to sell over again, that commonly grind- 
eth double, both upon the seller and upon the buyer. Sharings 
do greatly enrich, if the hands be well chosen that are trusted. 
Usury22 is the certainest means of gain, though one of the 
worst; as that whereby a man doth eat his bread in sudore 
vultus alieniy^^ and besides, doth plow upon Sundays. But yet, 
certain though it be, it hath flaws; for that the scriveners^^ 
and brokers do value^^ unsound men, to serve their own turn. 
The fortune in being the first in an invention, or in a privi- 
lege, doth cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth in riches; 
as it was with the first sugar man^^ in the Canaries: there- 
for if a man can play the true logician, to have as well 
judgment as invention, he may do great matters; especially 
if the times be fit. He that resteth upon gains certain, shall 
hardly grow to great riches: and he that puts all upon adven- 
tures, doth oftentimes break and come to poverty: it is 
good therefore to guard adventures with certainties that may 
uphold losses. Monopolies, and coemption^^ of wares for 
re-sale, where they are not restrained, are great means to 
enrich; especially if the party have intelligence what things 
are like to come into request, and so store himself before- 
hand. Riches gotten by service, though it be of the best rise,^^ 
yet when they are gotten by flattery, feeding humors, and 
other servile conditions, they may be placed amongst the 
worst. As for fishing for testaments and executorships (as 

21. naufiTlit. Evil (naugrhty). 

22. Usury. The lending- of money for (not necessarily exces- 
sive) interest. 

23. in sudore, etc. "In the sweat of another's brow." 

24. scriveners. Brokers, who invested money on commission. 

25. value. Represent as trustworthy. 

26. first su^rar man. No particular person is referred to. 
Sugar cane was taken from Sicily to Madeira and the Canaries 
near the end of the 15th century, and for the following two 
centuries Europe drew her sugar supply chiefly from these 
islands. 

27. coemption. Buying up the whole supply. 

28. of tiie "beet rise. In the highest rank. 



BACON ^'d 

Tacitus saith^^ of Seneca, testamenta et orhos tanquam 
indagine eapi^^), it is yet worse; by how much men submit 
themselves to meaner persons than in service. Believe not 
much them that seem to despise riches: for they despise them 
that despair of them; and none worse, when they come to 
them. Be not penny-wise; riches have wings, and sometimes 
they fly away of themselves, sometimes they must be set 
flying to bring in more. Men leave their riches either to 
their kindred, or to the public; and moderate portions prosper 
best in both. A gTeat state^^ left to an heir, is as a lure to all 
the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not 
the better stabiished in years and judgment. Likewise glorious 
gifts and foundations^^ are like sacrifices without salt;^^ and 
but the painted sepulchers of alms, which soon will putrefy 
and corrupt inwardly. Therefore measure not thine advance- 
ments^'^ by quantity, but frame them by measure :^^ and defer 
not charities till death ; for certainly, if a man weigh it rightly. 
he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his 
own. 

OF YOUTH AND AGE^ 

A MAN that is young in years may be old in hours, if he 
have lost no time. But that happeneth rarely. Generally, 
youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. 
For there is a youth in thoughts as well as in ages. And yet 
the invention of young men is more lively than that of 

29. Tacitus salth. Tacitus, one of the chief Roman historians, 
is quoting- Suillius, one of Seneca's enemies, who asks how the 
philosopher-statesman could have amassed 300,000,000 sesterces 
in four years by fair means. 

30. testamenta, etc. "Wills and childless parents taken as 
with a net." {Annals of Tacitus, book xiii.) 

31. state. Estate; compare "stablish," just below, for modem 
"establish." 

32. fotLndations. Endowments. 

S3, sacrifices without salt. See Leviticus 2:13 for the Hebrew- 
custom referred to. Bacon means that the gifts left behind after 
the death of the giver will spoil for lack of his personal care. 

34. advancements. Settlements of property. 

35. measure. Just proportion. 

1. First published in 1612; revised in 1625, as Essay XLIL 



44 ESSAYS— EXGLIS:i AXD AMERICAN 

old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and as 
it were more divinely. Natures that have much heat, and 
great and violent desires and perturbations, are not ripe for 
action till they have passed the meridian of their years: as 
it was with Julius Caesar, and Septimius Severus;^ of the 
latter of whom it is said, Juventutem egit erroribus^ imo 
fiirorihus, •plenamJ' And yet he was the ablest emperor, 
almost, of all the list. But reposed^ natures may do well in 
youth; as it is seen in Augustus Caesar, Cosmus duke of 
Florence,^ Gaston de Foix,^ and others. On the other side, 
heat and vivacity in age is an excellent composition^ for busi- 
ness. Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for 
execution than for counsel; and fitter for new projects than 
for settled business. For the experience of age, in things 
that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new 
things, abuseth^ them. The errors of young men are the 
ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to 
this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, 
in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they 
€an hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, with- 
out consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some 
few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care 
not to innovate,^ which draws unknown inconveniences; use 
extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, 

2. Septimus Severus. See note above, page 31, under the 
essay on Friendship. 

3. Juventutem, etc. "His youth was full not only of errors 
tut of frantic passiona" (From Spartianus's Life of Severus.) 

4. reposed. Calm. 

5. Cosm.us cluie of Plorence. Cosmos de Medici (1389-1464) 
became ruler of Florence at the age of seventeen. 

6. Gaston de Poix. Bacon may refer to a Count de Foix of 
the 14th century, of whom the chroniclers relate that he won 
distinction both \n civil and military life at the age of fourteen, 
or to a nephew of Louis XII who was made commander-in-chief 
of an expedition in which he was slain at the age of twenty-three, 
In 1512. 

7. com.position. Temperament. 

8. abusetli. Deceives. 

9. care not to innovate. Are not cauticuF about making 
innovations. 



BACON 45 

will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, 
that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, 
consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and 
seldom drive business home to the full period/® but content 
themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly, it is good 
to compound employments of both; for that will be good for 
the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the 
defects of both; and good for succession/^ that young men 
may be learners, while men in age are actors ; and, lastly, good 
for extern accidents,^^ because authority followeth old men, 
and favor and popularity youth. But for the moral part, 
perhaps youth will have the pre-eminence, as age hath for the 
politic. A certain rabbin, upon the text, Your young men 
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreamSj^'^> 
inf erreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, 
because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream. And 
certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it 
intoxicateth ; and age doth profit^^ rather in the powers of 
understanding than in the virtues of the will and affections. 
There be some have an over-early ripeness in their years, 
which fadeth betimes. These are, first, such as have brittle 
wits, the edge whereof is soon turned; such as was Hermo- 
genes^^ the rhetorician, whose books are exceediug subtile, who 
afterwards waxed stupid. A second sort is of those that 
have some natural dispositions which have better grace in 
youth than in age; such as is a fluent and luxuriant speech, 
which becomes youth well, but not age: so Tully^^ saith of 

10. period. Consummation. 

11. snccessioxi. Provision for the future. 

12. extern accidents. Chances coming from without (as from 
public opinion). 

13. Yonr young' men, etc. See Joel 2:28. The "rabbin" is 

Abravanel, a Jewish scholar of the early 16th century. 

14. profit. Improve, advance in. 

15. Hermog'enes. A writer of the second century, who at 
fifteen was famous as a rhetorician, but lost his memory at 
twenty-five, and spent the remainder of a long" life uselessly. 

16. Tnlly. Cicero. 



46 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Hortensius/^ Idem manehat, neque idem deeehat.^^ The third 
is of such as take too high a strain at the first, and are mag- 
nanimous^^ more than tract^^ of years can uphold ; as was 
Scipio Africanus,^^ of wliom Livy saith in effect, Ultima primis 
cedehant.^^ 

OF STUDIES^ 

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. 
Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for 
ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment 
and disposition of business. For expert men^ can execute 
and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general 
counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best 
from those that are learned. To spend too much time in 
studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affecta- 
tion; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor^ 
of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by 
experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that 
need proyning^ by study; and studies themselves do give 
forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in 
by experience. Crafty men^ contemn studies; simple® men 
admire them ; and wise men use them : for they teach not their 

17. Hortenslus. A Roman orator, at first a rival and later a 
tjolleague of Cicero. 

18. Idem maneljat, etc. **He remained the same, when the same 
was no long-er becoming to him." 

19. iiiag*nanlmoTis. High-spirited. 

20. tract. Course. 

21. Scipio Africantis. A great Roman general, who died 183 
B.C.; he was elected consul before he had attained the legal age, 
and won his great victories in Africa in his early thirties, but 
his later years were shadowed by public ingratitude and sus- 
picion. Livy the historian treats of him in his Annals. 

22. Ultima, etc. "The last fell short of the first." 

1. First published in 1597; enlarged in 1612 and again In 
1625; eventually called Essay L. 

2. expert men,. Men trained by experience. 

3. humor. Whim, eccentricity. 

4. proyning'. Pruning, cultivation. 

5. crafty m.en. Bacon probably means men skilled in handi- 
crafts and other matters not requiring book learning. 

6. simple. Ignorant, foolish. 



BACON 47 

own use; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, 
won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor 
to believe and take for gTanted; nor to find talk and dis- 
course; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be 
tasted; others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and 
digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; 
others to be read, but not curiousl}^;^ and some few to be 
read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books 
also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by 
others; but that would be only in the less important argu- 
ments,^ and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are 

j like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh 
a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact 
man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have 
a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a present 
wit;^ and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to 

; seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; 
poets witty ;^^ the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy^^ 
deep ; moraP^ grave ; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Aheiint 
studia in mores,^^ ^^Jj there is no stond^^ or impediment in 
the wit, but may be wrought out^^ by fit studies : like as diseases 

I of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good 
for the stone and reins ;-^ shooting for the lungs and breast; 
gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the 
like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathe- 
matics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never 

7. curiously. Attentively. 

8. arg^insiLts. Portions of the subject-matter. 

9. present wit. A ready mind. 

10. witty. Quick of fancy. 

11. natural pliilosopliy. Physical science. 

12. moral. Understand "philosophy." 

13. Abeunt, etc. "Studies have an influence upon the manners 
of those that are conversant in them." (This is Bacon's own 
paraphrase, in his Advancement of Learning; the original is from 
Ovid's Heroides, Book xv.) 

14. stoud. Hindrance, stoppage. 

15. wroug-lit out. Removed. 
18. reins. Kidneys. 



48 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

so little, he must begin again: if his wit be not apt to dis- 
tinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen ;^^ 
for they are cymini sectores:^^ if he be not apt to beat over 
matters, and to call one thing to prove and illustrate another, 
let him study the lawyers' cases: so every defect of the mind 
may have a special receipt. 

17. the sclioolmeii. Medieval philosophers (of the "scholastic" 
system). 

18. cymlnl sectores. Splitters of cummin-seed, "hair-splitters." 



CHARACTERS 

[Sir Thomas Overbury was born in 1581, of an aristocratic family; 
le did distinguished work at Oxford University, and later won a 
I position at the court of James I, where he fostered literature and 
;he arts. Becoming- involved in a court scandal, he was impris- 
oned in the Tower and secretly poisoned (in 1613) by agents of 
(Lady Essex. For his Characters, see the Introduction, page 8. 

Joseph Hall was born in 1574, and educated at Cambridge. He 
vvon early success as poet and satirist, but after taking holy 
orders devoted himself largely to controversial writing on ecclesi- 
a.stical matters; he was mad© Bishop of Exeter in 1627 and of 
Norwich in 1641. Under the Commonwealth he was removed from 
office and imprisoned; he died in private life, in 1656. 

John Earle was born about 1601, and educated at Oxford. While 

still a young man he attained literary fame through his collection 

of Characters called Microcosmographie (1628), which ran through 

many editions. He became tutor to Prince Charles (afterward 

Charles II), and during the Commonwealth followed the royal 

1 house to France; after the Restoration he was made Bishop, first 

jof "Worcester, then of Salisbury, dying in 1665. He was called 

j "one of those men who could not have an enemy." 

Samuel Butler was bom. in 1612, the son of a Worcestershire 
[farmer, and had to make his own way in the world. Eventually 
I he served as clerk to several justices of the peace and as secre- 
j tary to country gentlemen. He engaged in some pamphleteering 
j on the side of the Royalists, and after the Restoration attained 
I fame through the publication of Hudibras, a mock-heroic poem in 
I ridicule of the Puritans. Admired but not greatly rewarded by 
! the court, he died in poverty in 1680, Butler's Characters, to- 
, gether with many of his other writings, remained in manuscript 
I until the middle of the eighteenth century.] 

I SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 

A WISE MAN 

IS THE truth of the true definition of man, that is, a reason- 
able creature. His disposition^ alters; he alters not. He hides 

1. disposition. Condition. 

49 



50 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

himself with the attire of the vulgar ;2 and in indifferent 
things is content to be governed by them. He looks according 
to nature; so goes his behavior. His mind enjoys a continual 
smoothness; so cometh it that his consideration is always at 
home. He endures the faults of all men silently, except his 
friends, and to them he is the mirror of their actions; by this 
means, his peace cometh not from fortune, but himself. He 
is cunning in men, not to surprise, but keep his own,^ and 
beats oE their ill-affected humors no otherwise than if they 
were flies. He chooseth not friends by the Subsidy-book,* 
and is not luxurious^ after acquaintance. He maintains tho 
strength of his body, not by delicates, but temperance; and 
his mind, by giving it pre-eminence over his body. He under- 
stands things, not by their form, but qualities; and his com- 
parisons intend^ not to excuse but to provoke him higher. 
He is not subject to casualties, for fortune hath nothing to 
do with the mind, except those drowned in the body; but he 
hath divided his soul from the case of his soul, whose weak- 
ness he assists no otherwise than commiseratively — not that it 
is his, but that it is. He is thus, and will be thus; and lives 
subject neither to time nor his frailties, the servant of virtue, 
and by virtue the friend of the highest. 

JOSEPH HALL 

HE IS A HAPPY MAN 

THAT hath learned to read himself more than all books, 
and hath so taken out this lesson that he can never forget it; 

2. vulfirar. Common people. 

3. le CTuminsT in men, etc. Knows how to deal with men, not 
deceitfully but for self-protection. 

4. SuTssidy-book. A book in which were recorded the names 
of those liable to pay certain taxes; hence a list of people of 
means. 

5. luznrloas. Passionately desirous. 

6. Ms eomparlsons Intend, etc. That is, when he compares 
his own worlc with that of others he does it not to apolog-ize but 
to improve. 



HALL 51 

that knows the world, and cares not for it; that, after many 
traverses of thoughts/ is grown to know what he may trust 
to, and stands now equally armed for all events; that hath 
^ot the mastery at home, so as he can cross his will without 
a mutiny, and so please it that he makes it not a wanton; 
.that in earthly things wishes no more than nature, in spiritual 
is ever graciously ambitious;^ that for his condition stands 
;on his own feet, not needing to lean upon the great, and can 
'so frame his thoughts to his estate that when he hath least 
he cannot want, because he is as free from desire as super- 
fluity; that hath seasonably broken the headstrong restiness^ 
I of prosperity, and can now manage it at pleasure; upon 
whom all smaller crosses light as hailstones upon a roof; and 
for the greater calamities, he can take them as tributes of life 
and tokens of love ; and if his ship be tossed, yet he is sure his 
anchor is fast. If all the world were his, he could be no 
I other than he is, no whit gladder of himself, no whit higher 
I in his carriage/^ because he knows contentment lies not in 
the things he hath, but in the mind that values them. The 
powers of his resolution can either multiply or subtract* at 
pleasure. He can make his cottage a manor or a palace when 
be lists, and his home-close^ ^ a large dominion, his stained 
cloth arras,^^ his earth^^ plate, and can see state in the attend- 
ance of one servant, as one that hath learned a man's greatness 
'or baseness is in himself; and in this he may even contest 
jwith the proud, that he thinks his own the best. Or if he 
must be outwardly great, he can but turn the glass, and make 
his stately maiior a low and straight^* cottage, and in all his 

7. traverses of tlioiig'lits. Thoughts on unhappy fortunes. 

8. gTaciously ambitioiis. Ambitious to attain divine grace. 

9. restiness. Stubbornness (of a horse). 

10. carrlag"e. Mode of carrying (deporting) himself. 

11. liome-close. House-yard. 

12. arras. Wall-tapestry. 

13. earth. Earthenware; that is, he can make his coarse dishes 
into gold plate. 

14. straig-lit. Narrow; now spelled "strait." 



52 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

costly furniture he can see not richness but use; he can see 
dross in the best metal and earth through the best clothes, 
and in all his troupe^ ^ he can see himself his own servant. He 
lives quietly at home out of the noise of the world, and loves 
to enjoy himself always, and sometimes his friend, and hath 
as full scope to his thought as to his eyes. He walks ever 
even in the midway betwixt hopes and fears, resolved to fear 
nothing but God, to hope for nothing but that which he must 
have. He hath a wise and virtuous mind in a serviceable 
body, which that better part affects as a present servant and 
a future companion, so cherishing his flesh as one that would 
scorn to be all flesh. He hath no enemies; not for that^^ all 
love him, but because he knows to ^"^ make a gain of malice. 
He is not so engaged to any earthly thing that they two cannot 
part on even terms; there is neither laughter in their meeting, 
nor in their shaking of hands tears. He keeps ever the best 
company, the God of Spirits and the spirits of that God, whom 
he entertains continually in an awful familiarity, not being 
hindered either with too much light or with none at all. His 
conscience and his hand are friends, and (what devil soever 
tempt him) will not fall out. That divine part goes ever 
uprightly and freely, not stooping under the burden of a 
willing sin, not fettered with the gyves of unjust scruples. 
He would not, if he could, run away from himself or from 
God; not caring from whom he lies hid, so he may look these 
two in the face. Censures and applauses are passengers to 
him, not guests; his ear is their thoroughfare, not their harbor; 
he hath learned to fetch both his counsel and his' sentence from 
his own breast. He doth not lay weight upon his own shoul- 
ders, as one that loves to torment himself with the honor of 
much employment; but as he makes work his game, so doth 
he not list to make himself work. His strife is ever to redeem 



15. troupe. Household retinue. 

16. for tliat. Because. 

17. knows to. Knows how to. 



HALL 53 

and not to spend time. It is his trade to do good, and to think 
of it his recreation. He hath hands enough for himself and 
others, which are ever stretched forth for beneficence, not for 
need. He walks cheerfully in the way that God hath chalked, 
and never wishes it more wide or more smooth. Those very 
temptations whereby he is foiled^^ strengthen him; he comes 
forth crowned and triumphing out of the spiritual battles, and 
those scars that he hath make him beautiful. His soul is 
every day dilated to receive that God, in whom he is ; and hath 
attained to love himself for God, and God for His own sake. 
His eyes stick so fast in heaven that no. earthly object can 
remove them; yea, his whole self is there before his time, and 
sees with Stephen,^® and hears with Paul,^^ and enjoys with 
Lazarus,^^ the glory that he shall have, and takes possession 
beforehand of his room amongst the saints ; and these heavenly 
contentments have so taken him up that now he looks down 
displeasedly upon the earth as the region of his sorrow and 
banishment, yet joying more in hope than troubled with the 
sense of evils. He holds it no great matter to live, and his 
greatest business to die; and is so well acquainted with his 
last guest that he fears no unkindness from him: neither 
makes he any other of dying than of walking home when he 
is abroad, or of going to bed when he is weary of the day. 
He is well provided for both worlds, and is sure of peace 
here, of glory hereafter; and therefore hath a light heart and 
a cheerful face. All his fellow-creatures rejoice to serve him; 
his betters, the angels, love to observe him; God Himself 
takes pleasure to converse with him, and hath sainted him 
before his death, and in his death crowned him. 

18. foiled. Partly thrown (in wrestling). 

19. Stephen. See Acts 7:55-56. 

20. PauL See Acts 9:3-4. 

21. ibazams. See Luke 16:23. 



54 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

JOHN EARLE 

A YOUNG MAN 

He is now out of nature's protection, though not yet able 
to guide himself; but left loose to the world and fortune, 
from which the weakness of his childhood preserved him; 
and now his strength exposes him. He is, indeed, just of age 
to be miserable, yet in his own conceit^^ first begins to be 
happy; and he is happier in this imagination, and his misery 
not felt is less. He sees yet but the outside of the world and 
men, and conceives them according to their appearing glis- 
ter, ^^ and out of this ignorance believes them. He pursues 
all vanities for happiness, and enjoys them best in this 
fancy. His reason serves not to curb but understand his 
appetite, and prosecute the motions thereof with a moro 
eager earnestness. Himself is his own temptation, and needs 
not Satan, and the world will come hereafter. He leaves 
repentance for gray hairs, and performs it in being covetous. 
He is mingled with the vices of the age as the fashion and 
custom, with which he longs to be acquainted, and sins to 
better his understanding. He conceives his youth as the 
season of his lust, and the hour wherein he ought to be bad; 
and because he would not lose his time, spends it. He dis- 
tastes religion as a sad thing, and is six years elder for a 
thought of heaven. He scorns and fears, and yet hopes for 
old age, but dare not imagine it with wrinkles. He loves 
and hates with the same inflammation, and when the heat is 
over is cool alike to friends and enemies. His friendship is 
seldom so steadfast, but that lust, drink, or anger may over- 
turn it. He offers you his blood today in kindness, and is 
ready to take yours tomorrow. He does seldom anything 
which he wishes not to do again, and is only wise after a mis- 

22. conceit. Imagination. 

23. conceives . . . gflister. Judges them according to their 
apparent brilliance. 



EARLE 55 

fortune. He suffers much for his knowledge, and a great 
deal of folly it is makes him a v/ise man. He is free 
from many vices, by being not grown to the performance, and 
is only more virtuous out of weakness. Every action is his 
danger, and every man his ambush. He is a ship without pilot 
or tackling, and only good fortune may steer him. If he 
scape this age, he has scaped a tempest, and may live to 
be a man. 

A GOOD OLD MAN 

IS THE best antiquity, and which we may with least vanity 

admire. One whom time hath been thus long a working, and 

like winter fruit ripened when others are shaken down. He 

hath taken out as many lessons of the world as days, and 

learnt the best thing in it, the vanity of it. He looks over his 

I former life as a danger well past, and would not hazard 

himself to begin again. His lust was long broken before his 

body, yet he is glad this temptation is broke too, and that 

he is fortified from it by this weakness. The next door of 

death sads him not, but he expects it calmly as his turn in 

nature; and fears more his recoiling back to childishness 

than dust. All men look on him as a common father, and on 

old age, for his sake, as a reverent thing. His very presence 

and face puts vice out of countenance, and makes it an 

indecorum in a vicious man. He practices his experience on 

; youth without the harshness of reproof, and in his counsel 

j is good company. He has some old stories still of his own 

seeing to confirm what he says, and makes them better in 

the telling; yet is not troublesome neither with the same tale 

again, but remembers with them how oft he has told them. 

His old sayings and morals seem proper to his beard; and 

the poetry of Cato^* does well out of his mouth, and he 

speaks it as if he were the author. He is not apt to put the 

24. Cata, The Roman statesman of the second century b.c, 
who v*ras hig-hiy reputed for his old-fashioned and uncompromising 
virtue. He was not a poet, but in later ages various ethical 
maxims, in verse form, were attributed to him. 

|l 



56 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

boy on a younger man,25 nor tlie fool on a boy, but can 
distinguish gravity from a sour look; and the less testy 
he is, the more regarded. You must pardon him if he like 
his own times better than these, because those things are 
follies to him now that were wisdom then: yet he makes us 
of that opinion too when we see him, and conjecture those 
times by so good a relic. He is a man capable of a dearness 
with the youngest men, yet he not youthfuller for them, but 
they older for him; and no man credits more his acquaint- 
ance. He goes away at last too soon whensoever, with all 
men^s sorrow but his own; and his memory is fresh, when 
it is twice as old. 

A TEDIOUS MAN 
TALKS to no end, as well as to no purpose; for he would 
never come at it willingly. His discourse is like the road- 
miles in the north,^^ the filthier and dirtier the longer; and 
he delights to dwell the longer upon them to make good the 
old proverb that says they are good for the dweller, but ill 
for the traveler. He sets a tale upon the rack, and stretches, 
it until it becomes lame and out of joint. Hippocrates^^ says 
art is long; but he is so for want of art. He has a vein of 
dullness that runs through all he says or does; for nothing 
can be tedious that is not dull and insipid. Digressions and 
repetitions, like bag and baggage, retard his march and 
put him to perpetual halts. He makes his approaches to a 
business by oblique lines, as if he meant to besiege it, and 
fetches a wide compass about to keep others from discover- 
ing what his design is. He is like one that travels in a dirty 
deep road, that moves slowly; and, when he is at a stop, 

25. put . . . young'ep man. Take a young-er man for a boy. 

26. road-miles in the north,. The Scottish mile was formerly 
about an eig-hth longer than the Eng-lish. Cf. Burns In Tarn 
O'Shanter: "We think na on the lang Scots miles." 

27. Hippocrates. An ancient Greek physician. His famous 
aphorism was handed down later in Seneca's Lratin version: "Vita 
brevis, ars longa," which Ohaucer paraphrased in the line, "The 
lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." 



J BUTLER 57 

goes back again, and loses more time in picking of his way 
khan in going it. How troublesome and uneasy soever 
he is to others, he pleases himself so well that he does not 
at all perceive it; for though home be homely, it is more 
delightful than finer things abroad; and he that is used to 
a thing and knows no better believes that other men, to 
whom it appears otherwise, have the same sense of it that 
he has; as melancholy^^ persons that fancy themselves to 
be glass believe that all others think them so too; and there- 
fore that which is tedious to others is not so to him, other- 
wise he would avoid it; for it does not so often proceed 
from a natural defect as affectation and desire to give others 
that pleasure which they find themselves, though it always 
falls out quite contrary. He that converses with him is like 
one that travels with a companion that rides a lame jade; 
he must either endure to go his pace or stay for him; for 
though he understands long before what he would be at better 
than he does himself, he must have patience and stay for 
him, until, with much ado to little purpose, he at length 
comes to him; for he believes himself injured if he should 
abate a jot of his own diversion. 

SAMUEL BUTLER 
A ROMAXCE WRITER 
PULLS down old histories to build them up finer again, after a 
new model of his own designing. He takes away all the lights 
of truth in history to make it the fitter tutoress of life; for 
Truth herself has little or nothing to do in the affairs of the 
world, although all matters of the greatest weight and moment 
are pretended and done in her name, like a weak princess 
that has only the title, and falsehood all the power. He 
observes one very fit decorum in dating his histories in 
the days of old and putting all his own inventions upon 
ancient times; for when the world was younger, it might 
28. melanclicly. Mad. 



58 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

perhaps love and fight and do generous things at the rate 
he describes them; but since it is grown old, ail these heroic 
feats are laid by and utterly given over, nor ever like 
to come in fashion again; and therefore all his images of 
those virtues signify no more than the statues upon dead 
men's tombs, that will never make them live again. He is 
like one of Homer's gods, that sets men together by the 
ears and fetches them off again how he pleases; brings armies 
into the field like Janello's leaden soldiers; leads up both 
sides himself, and gives the victory to which he pleases, 
according as he fijids it fit the design of his story; makes 
love and lovers too, brings them acquainted, and appoints 
meetings when and where he pleases, and at the same time I 
betrays them in the height of all their felicity to miserable 
captivity, or some other horrid calamity; for which he makes 
them rail at the gods and curse their own innocent stars 
when he onty has done them all the injury ; makes men villains, 
compels them to act all barbarous inhumanities by his own 
directions, and after inflicts the cruelest punishments upon 
them for it . He makes all his knights fight in fortifica- 
tions, and storm one another's armor before they can come 
to encounter body for body, and always matches them so 
equally one with another that it is a whole page before they 
can guess which is likely to have the better; and he that 
has it is so mangled that it had been better for them both to 
have parted fair at first; but when they encounter with those 
that are no knights, though ever so well armed and mounted, 
ten to one goes for nothing. As for the ladies, they are 
every one the most beautiful in the whole world, and that's 
the reason why no one of them, nor all together with all their 
charms, have power to tempt away any knight from another. 
He differs from a just historian as a joiner does from a 
carpenter; the one does things plainly and substantially for 
use, and the other carves and polishes merely for show and 
ornament. 



I 



RICHARD STEELE 

1 [Richard Steele was born in 1672. He entered Oxford University, 
I but joined the axmy before he had taken a degree. In 1701 he 
began to write for the stage ; later he was appointed state gazetteer, 
ind engaged in political pamphleteering. He founded The Tatler 
in 1709 (see Introduction, page 9), and later joined Addison in 
The Spectator and various subsequent journals. After a stormy 
career as Member of Parliament, he was knighted by the King. 
[n 1724 he retired to an estate in Wales, and died there in 1729. 
Though he fell short of the distinction which marked the literary 
work and reputation of Addison, Steele's character is as amiable 
sind rather more vivacious than that of his friend.] 



MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND^ 

[Tatler No. 95. Thursday, November 17, 1709.] 

There are several persons who have many pleasures and 
entertainments in their possession which they do not enjoy. 
It is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with 
Lheir own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances 
3f their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons 
in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine 
away their days, by looking upon the same condition in 
anguish and murmur, which carries with it in . the opinion 

j)f others a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a 

'^etreat from its inquietudes. 

^ I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, 

\mho was formerly my school-fellow. He came to town last 
veek with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning 
>ent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it 

1. This essay is one of the most characteristic of those which 
represent the effort of Steele and Addison to attract their readers 
' -o the values of simple domestic morality and happiness. On 
'Mr. Bickerstaff," see the Introduction, page 9. 

59 



60 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

were, at home at that house, and every member of it knows 
me for their well-wisher. I cannot indeed express the pleasure 
it is, to be met by the children with so much joy as I am 
when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come 
first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; 
and that child which loses the race to me runs back again 
to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led 
in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must have forgot me; 
for the family has been out of town these two years. Her 
knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took 
up our discourse at the first entrance. After which, they 
began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in 
the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbor's 
daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, "Nay, 
if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old compan- 
ions, I hope mine shall have the preference; there is Mrs. 
Mary2 is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow 
as the best of them. But I know him too well; he is so 
enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished 
in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the 
modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you 
went home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress, 
when Teraminta^ reigned in your heart. As we came up in 
the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on 
her." With such reflections on little passages* which happened 
long ago, we passed our time during a cheerful and elegant 
meal. After dinner, his lady left the room, as did also the 
children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand : 
"Well, my good friend," says he, "I am heartily glad to see 
thee; I was afraid you would never have seen all the company 
that dined with you today again. Do not you think the good 

2. Mrs. Mary. Pronounced *'Mistress." The term "Miss" was 
at this period reserved for little girls. 

3. Teraminta. The fanciful name supposed to be applied to 
the young lady in question according to the practice of conven' 
tional love poetry. 

4. passag'es. Incidents. 



STEELE 61 

woman of the house a little altered, since you followed her 
from the play-house, to find out who she was, for me'^^ i 
perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved 
me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, said I, ^^She is 
not indeed quite that creature she was when she returned me 
the letter I carried from you; and told me ^she hoped, as 
I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble 
her, who had never offended me, but would be so much the 
gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which 
he could never succeed in.' You may remember, I thought 
her in earnest; and you were forced to employ your cousin 
Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for you. 
You cannot expect her to be forever fifteen." "Fifteen 1" 
replied my good friend. "Ah! you little understand, you that 
have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure 
there is, in being really beloved ! It is impossible that the most 

\ beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing 
ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading 
in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with 
me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which 
had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you sin- 
cerely, I have so many obligations to her, that I cannot with 
any sort of moderation think of her present state of health. 
But as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day 
pleasures beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her 
beauty when I was in the vigor of youth. Every moment 

] of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency 
to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my for- 
tune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when 
I first saw it ; there is no decay in any feature, which I can- 
not trace from the very instant it was occasioned by some 

1 anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus at the 

B same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for 
what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she 
is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion com- 



62 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

monly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons 
is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh ! she is an 
inestimable jewel. In her examination of her household affairs, 
she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes 
her servants obey her like children; and the meanest we have 
has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be 
seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, 
*my old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave me 
the quickest joy before, turn now to a certain anxiety. As 
the children play in the next room, I know the poor things 
by their steps, and am considering what they must do, should 
they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure 
I used to take in telling our boy stories of the battles, and 
asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby,^ and 
the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melan- 
choly." 

He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good 
lady entered, and with an inexpressible sweetness in her coun- 
tenance told us she had been searching the closet for some- 
thing very good, to treat such an old friend as I was. Her 
husband^s eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of 
her countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. 
The lady, observing something in our looks which showed 
we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her 
husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheer- 
fulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking 
of; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, "Mr. 
Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you; 
I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have 
often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself 
than he has done since his coming to town. You must know, 
he tells me that he finds London is a much more healthy 
place than the country; for he sees several of his old 
acquaintance and school-fellows are here, young fellows 

5. her TbaTby. That is, her doll; the gossiping is the christening* 



STEELE 63 

Avith fair full-bottomed periwigs.^ I could scarce keep him 
this morning from going out open-breasted."^ My friend^ 
who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humor^ 
made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness 
which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep *up the 
good humor she had brought in with her, turned her raillery 
upon me. "Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me 
one night from the play-house; suppose you should carry 
me thither tomorrow night, and lead me into the front box."* 
This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties 
who were mothers to the present, and shone in the boxes 
twenty years ago. I told her I was glad she had trans- 
ferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but 
her eldest daughter was within half -a-y ear of being a toast. ^ 
We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment 
of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with 
, the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little god- 
^son to give me a point of war.^® His mother, between laugh- 
1 ing and childing, would have put him out of the room ; but I 
would not part with him so. I found, upon conversation 
with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the 
child had excellent parts,^^ and was a great master of all 
the learning on the other side eight years old. I perceived 
him a very great historian in ^^sop's Fables; but he frankly 
declared to me his mind, that he did not delight in that 
learning, because he did not believe they were true; for 
1 which reason I found he had very much turned his studies, 

6. fuU-'bottomed periwig's. Larg-e curled wigs, reaching: to 
the shoulders, such as are familiar in. the pictures of Addison 
and Steele. 

7. open-breasted. That is, with the then fashionable long 
waistcoat unfastened over the chest, "out of an affectation of 
youth," as Steele put it in another essay (Tatler No. 246). 

8. front box. At this period the gentlemen occupied the side 
Doxes at the theater, the ladies those in front of the stage. 

9. toast. A belle, in whose honor toasts would be drunk at 
• parties. 

10. point of war. A short roll on the drum, used as a sig-naL 

11. parts. Abilities. 



64 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and adventures 
of Don Belianis^2 Qf Greece, Guy of Warwick,^-^ the Seven 
Champions,^* and other historians of that age. I could not 
but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forward- 
ness of* his son ; and that these diversions might turn to some 
profit, I found the boy had made remarks^*"^ which might be 
of service to him during the course of his whole life. He 
would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickerthrift,^® 
find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southamp- 
ton,^^ and loved Saint George for being the champion of 
England; and by this means had his thoughts insensibly 
molded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honor. I 
was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me 
that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her 
way a better scholar than he. ^^Betty," said she, "deals 
chiefly in fairies and sprites, and sometimes in a winter night 
will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid 
to go up to bed." 

I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, 
sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, 
which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense 
that every one of us liked each other. I went home, con- 
sidering the different conditions of a married life and that 
of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a secret 
concern, to reflect that whenever I go off I shall leave no 

12. Don Belianis. The hero of an extravag^ant Spanish romance 
by Fernandez. 

13. Guy of Warwick. A legendary English hero, whose adven- 
tures were narrated in many popular romances. 

14. tlie Seven Champions. National heroes (St. George, St 
Patrick, St. Andrew, St. David, St. Denis, St. Anthony, and St. 
James) whose stories were related in a long romance called 
The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom, by Richard 
Johnson, 1596-1616. 

15. made remarks. Observed matters. 

16. Jolin Hickertlirlft. A mythical boy (called also Tom 
Hickathrift), reputed to have had extraordinary strength, where- 
with he slew giants, played merry pranks, etc. 

17. Bevis of Southampton. The hero of another widely popu- 
lar romance of the sixteenth century. 



STEELE 65 

traces behind me. In this pensive mood I returned to my 
family ; that is to say, to my maid, 'my dog, and my cat, who 
only can be the better or worse for what happens to me. 



THE ART OF CONFERRING BENEFITS 

[Spectator^ No. 248. Friday^ December 14, 1711.] 

There are none who dese/ve superiority over others in the 
esteem of mankind, who do not make it their endeavor to be 
beneficial to society, and who, upon all occasions which their 
circumstances of life can administer, do not take a certain 
unfeigned pleasure in conferring benefits of one kind or other. 
Those whose great talents and high birth have placed them in 
conspicuous stations of life are indispensably obliged to exert 
some noble inclinations for the service of the world, or else 
such advantages become misfortunes, and shade and privacy 
are a more eligible portion. Where opportunities and inclina- 
tions are given to the same person, we sometimes see sublime 
instances of virtue, which so dazzle our imaginations that we 
look with scorn on all which in lower scenes of life we may 
ourselves be able to practice. But this is a vicious way of 
thinking; and it bears some spice of romantic madness for 
a man to imagine that he must grow ambitious, or seek adven- 
tures, to be able to do great actions. It is in every man^s 
power in the world who is above mere poverty, not only to 
do things worthy, but heroic. The great foundation of civil 
virtue is self-denial; and there is no one above the necessities 
of life but has opportunities of exercising that noble quality, 
and doing as much as his circumstances will bear for the ease 
and convenience of other men; and he who does more than 
ordinarily men practice upon such occasions as occur in his 
life, deserves the value of his friends, as if he had done enter- 
prises which are usually attended with the highest glory. 
Men of public spirit differ rather in their circumstances than 



€6 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

their virtue; and the man who does all he can, in a low 
station, is more a hero than he who omits any worthy action 
he is able to accomplish in a great one. It is not many years 
ngo since Lapirius,^ in wrong of his elder brother, came to a 
<ireat estate by gift of his father, by reason of the dissolute 
behavior of the first-born. Shame and contrition reformed the 
life of the disinherited youth, and he became as remarkable 
for his good qualities as formerly for his errors. Lapirius, 
who observed his brother's amendment, sent him on a New 
Year's Daj^ in the morning the following letter: 

Honored Brother: 

I enclose to you the deeds whereby my father gave me 
this house and land. Had he lived till now, he would not 
have bestowed it in that manner; he took it from the man 
you were, and I restore it to the man you are. 
I am, Sir, your affectionate brother, 

and humble servant, 

P. T. 

As great and exalted spirits undertake the pursuit of haz- 
ardous actions for the good of others, at the same time gratify- 
ing their passion for glory, so do worthy minds in the domestic 
w^ay of life deny themselves many advantages, to satisfy a 
generous benevolence, which they bear to their friends 
oppressed with distresses and calamities. Such natures one 
may call stores of Providence, which are actuated by a secret 
<^elestial influence to imdervalue the ordinary gratifications 
of wealth, to give comfort to an heart loaded with affliction, 
to save a falling family, to preserve a branch of trade in 
their neighborhood, and give work to the industrious, preserve 
the portion of the helpless infant, and raise the head of the 
mourning father. People whose hearts are wholly bent towards 
pleasure or intent upon gain, never hear of the noble occur- 
rences among men of industry and humanity. It would look 

1. Ijapirius. A mere type-name, in Latin form according to 
literary usage. 



STEELE 67 

like a city romance to tell them of the generous merchant who 
the other day sent this billet to an eminent trader, under diflfii- 
culties to support himself, in whose fall many hundreds besides 
himself had perished ;2 but because I think there is more 
spirit and true gallantry in it than in any letter I have ever 
read from Strephon to Phillis,^ I shall insert it even in the 
mercantile honest style in which it was sent. 

Sir: 

I have heard of the casualties which have involved you 
in extreme distress at this time, and, knowing you to be a 
man of great good nature, industry, and probity, have 
resolved to stand by you. Be of good cheer; the bearer 
brings with him five thousand pounds, and has my order 
to answer your drawing as much more on my account. 
I did this in haste, for fear I should come too late for 
your relief; but you may value yourself with me to the 
sum of fifty thousand pounds; for I can very cheerfully 
. run the hazard of being so much less rich than I am now^ 
to save an honest man whom I love. 

Your friend and servant, 

W. S. 

I I think there is somewhere in Montaigne mention made of 
a family-book, wherein" all the occurrences that happened 
from generation of that house to another were recorded. 
Were there such a method in the families which are concerned 
in this generosity, it would be an hard task for the greatest 
in Europe to give in their own an instance of a benefit better 
placed, or conferred with a more graceful air. It has been 
heretofore urged how barbarous and inhuman is any unjust 
step made to the disadvantage of a trader; and by how much 
such an act towards him is detestable, by so much an act of 
kindness towards him is laudable. I remember to have heard 

2. had perislied. Would have perished. 

3. Strephon to Phillis. Type-names of lovers in the pastoral 
school of poetry. 



68 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

a bencher of the Temple^ tell a story of a tradition in their 
house, where they had formerly a custom of choosing kings 
for such a season, and allowing him his expenses at the charge 
of the society. One of our kings, said my friend, carried his 
roj^al inclination a little too far, and there was a committee 
ordered to look into the management of his treasury. Among 
other things it appeared that his majesty, walking incog, in 
the cloister, had overheard a poor man say to another, "Such 
a small sum would make me the happiest man in the world.'' 
The king, out of his royal compassion, privately inquired 
into his character, and, finding him a proper object of charity, 
sent him the money. When the committee read the report, the 
house passed his accounts with a plaudite^ without further 
examination, upon the recital of this article in them: 

£ s. d. 
For making a man happy 10 



A FINE GENTLEMAN 

{Guardian^ No, 34. Monday^ April 20, 1713.] 

It is a most vexatious thing to an old man who endeavors 
to square his notions by reason, and to talk from reflection 
and experience, to fall in with a circle of young ladies at 
their afternoon tea-table. This happened very lately to be 
my fate. The conversation, for the first half -hour, was so 
very rambling that it is hard to say what was talked of, or 
who spoke least to the purpose. The various motions of the 
fan, the tossings of the head, intermixed with all the pretty 
kinds of laughter, made up the greatest part of the dis- 
course. At last this modish way of shining, and being witty, 
settled into something like conversation, and the talk ran 

4. Tbenclier of the Temple. A senior member of one of the 
societies of lawyers called the Inns of Court, whose headquarters 
were in the Inner and the Middle Temple. "Their house" means 
that of this society. 

5. a plaudite. Approval. 



STEELE , 69 

upon fine gentlemen. From the several characters that were 
given, and the exceptions that were made, as this or that 
gentleman happened to be named, I found that a lady is not 
difficult to be pleased, and that the town swarms with fine 
gentlemen. A nimble pair of heels, a smooth complexion, a 
full-bottom wig, a laced shirt, an embroidered suit, a pair 
of fringed gloves, a hat and feather; any one or more of 
I these and the like accomplishments ennobles a man, and 
raises him above the vulgar, in a female imagination. On 
the contrary, a modest, serious behavior, a plain dress, a 
thick pair of shoes, a leathern belt, a waistcoat not lined 
with silk, and such like imperfections, degrade a man, and 
are so many blots in his escutcheon. I could not forbear 
smiling at one of the prettiest and liveliest of this gay assem- 
bly, who excepted^ to the gentility of Sir William Hearty, 
because he wore a frieze^ coat, and breakfasted upon toast 
and ale. I pretended to admire the fineness of her taste, 
and to strike in with her in ridiculing those awkward healthy 
gentlemen that seem to make nourishment the chief end of 
eating. I gave her an account of an honest Yorkshire gen- 
tleman, who (when I was a traveler) used to invite his 
acquaintance at Paris to break their fast with him upon 
cold roast beef and mum.^ There was, I remember, a little 
French marquis, who was often pleased to rally him unmerci- 
fully upon beef and pudding,^ of which our countryman 
would despatch a pound or two with great alacrity, while this 
antagonist was piddling at^ a mushroom, or the haunch of a 
frog. I could perceive the lady was pleased with what I 
said, and we parted upon very good friends, by virtue of a 
maxim I always observe, Never to contradict or reason with 



1. excepted. Objected. 

2. frieze. A rough thick material. 

3. mum. A strong ale. 

4. pudding'. The batter dressing cooked and served with 
roast, as "Yorkshire pudding." 

5. piddling' at. Toying fastidiously with. 



70 , ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

a sprightly female. I went home, however, full of a great 
many serious reflections upon what had passed, and though, 
in complaisance, I disguised my sentiments, to keep up the 
^ood humor of my fair companions, and to avoid being looked 
upon as a testy old fellow, yet out of the good-will I bear 
to the sex, and to prevent for the future their being imposed 
upon by counterfeits, I shall give them the distinguishing 
marks of a true fine gentleman. 

When a good artist would express any remarkable char- 
acter in sculpture, he endeavors to work up his figure into 
all the perfections his imagination can form, and to imitate 
not so much what is, as what may or ought to be. I shall 
follow their example, in the idea I am going to trace out of a 
:fine gentleman, by assembling together such qualifications as 
seem requisite to make the character complete. In order to 
this I shall premise in general, that by a fine gentleman I 
mean a man completely qualified as well for the service and 
good as for the ornament and delight of society. When 
I consider the frame of mind peculiar to a gentleman, I 
suppose it graced with all the dignity and elevation of 
spirit that human nature is capable of. To this I would 
have joined a clear understanding, a reason free from preju- 
dice, a steady judgment, and an extensive knowledge. When 
I think of the heart of a gentleman, I imagine it firm and 
intrepid, void of all inordinate passions, and full of tender- 
ness, compassion, and benevolence. When I view the fine 
gentleman with regard to his manners, methinks I see him 
modest without bashfulness, frank and affable without imper- 
tinence, obliging and complaisant without servility, cheerful 
^nd in good humor without noise. These amiable qualities are 
not easily obtained; neither are there many men that have 
a genius to excel this way. A finished gentleman is perhaps 
the most uncommon of all the great characters in life. Besides 
the natural endowments with which this distinguished man is 
to be born, he must run through a long series of education. 



STEELE 71 

Before he makes his appearance and shines in the world, 
. he must be principled in religion, instructed in all the moral 
virtues, and led through the whole course of the polite arts 
and sciences. He should be no stranger to courts and to 
camps; he must travel to open his mind, to enlarge his views, 
to learn the policies and interests of foreign states, as well as 
to fashion and polish himself, and to get clear of national 
prejudices, of which every country has its share. To all 
these more essential improvements he must not forget to add 
the fashionable ornaments of life, such as are the languages 
and the bodily exercises most in vogue; neither would I have 
him think even dress itself beneath his notice. 

It is no very uncommon thing in the world to meet with men 
of probity; there are likewise a great many men of honor 
to be found. Men of courage, men of sense, and men of 
letters are frequent; but a true fine gentleman is what one 
seldom sees. He is properly a compound of the various good 
qualities that embellish mankind. As the great poet animates 
all the different parts of learning by the force of his genius, 
and u^radiates all the compass of his knowledge by the luster 
and brightness of his imagination, so all the great and solid 
perfections of life appear in the finished gentleman, with a 
beautiful gloss and varnish; every thing he says or does is 
accompanied with a manner, or rather a charm, that draws 
the admiration and good-will of every beholder. 

ADVERTISEMENT 

For the benefit of my female readers 

N. B. — The gilt chariot, the diamond ring, the gold snuff- 
box, and brocade sword-knot,^ are no essential parts of a fine 
gentleman; but may be used by him, provided he casts his 
eye upon them but once a day. 

6. sword-knot. A strap or sling on the sword-hilt, attached — 
in action — to the wrist. 



JOSEPH ADDISON 

[Joseph Addison was born in 1672, and was educated at Oxford, 
where for some time he held a fellowship. Later he became a 
giovernment official, a member of Parliament, and an important 
fig"ure in the political and social life of London. In 1716 he 
married the Countess of Warwick, in 1718 retired from g-overn- 
ment service, and died in 1719. In 1711 he joined Steele in the 
founding of the journal called The Spectator, and was soon regarded 
as the first essayist of the ag-e. For his work in journalism and 
the essay, see the Introduction, page 10.] 



OPERA LIONS^ 

{The Spectator, No. 13. Thursday, March 15, 1710-11.] 

There is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of 
greater amusement to the town than Signior Nicolini's^ com- 
bat with a lion in the Haymarket,^ which has been very often 
exhibited to the general satisfaction of most of the nobility 
and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain. Upon the first 
rumor of this intended combat, it was confidently afl&rmed. 
and is still believed by many in both galleries, that there 
would be a tame lion sent from the Tower* every opera night, 
in order to be killed by Hydaspes;^ this report, though 
altogether groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper 

1. This essay is a typical example of Addison's method of 
criticizing contemporary life by subjecting it to gentle ridicule. 
His mood is humorous, but jiot wholly without serious intent, 

2. Nicolini. Nicolinl Grimaldi, a Neapolitan, who sang in 
England with great success between 1708 and 1712. 

3. Haymarl^et. A theater devoted at this time to opera. 

4. Tower. This ancient fortress contained for many years a 
small menagerie of lions, leopards, etc., greatly enjoyed by the 
public. 

5. Hydaspes. In an Italian opera called L'Idaspe Fidele, by 
Mancini. The hero is thrown to a lion, whom he conquers bare- 
handed. 

72 



ADDISON 73 

regions of the playhouse that some of the most refined poli- 
ticians in those parts of the audience gave it out in whisper 
that the lion was a cousin-german^ of the tiger who made his 
appearance in King William's days, and that the stage 
would be supplied with lions at the public expense during 
, the whole session. Many likewise were the conjectures of 
the treatment which this lion was to meet with from the hands 
I of Signior Nicolini; some supposed that he was to subdue 
j him in redtativo, as Orpheus^ used to serve the wild beasts 
, in his time, and afterwards to knock him on the head; some 
I fancied that the lion would not pretend to lay his paws upon 
i the hero, by reason of the received opinion that a lion will 
j* not hurt a virgin.® Several, who pretended to have seen the 
j opera in Italy, had informed their friends that the lion was 
to act a part in High-Dutch, and roar twice or thrice to a 
thorough bass before he fell at the feet of Hydaspes. To 
I clear up a matter that was so variously reported, I have 
' made it my business to examine whether this pretended lion 
is really the savage he appears to be, or only a counterfeit. 
But before I communicate my discoveries, I must acquaint 
the reader that upon my walking behind the scenes last 
winter, as I was thinking on something else, I accidentally 
jostled against a monstrous animal that extremely startled me 
and, upon my nearer survey of it, appeared to be a lion 
rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised, told me, 
in a gentle voice, that I might come by him if I pleased: 
"For (says he) I do not intend to hurt anybody." I thanked 
him very kindly, and passed by him; and in a little time 
after saw him leap upon the stage, and act his part with very 
great applause. It has been observed by several that the 
lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since 

6. cousin-grenuaiu First cousin. 

7. Oxplieus. The first musician, in Greek tradition; he was 
said to tame wild beasts by his music. 

8. not liiirt a virgin. A belief widespread in the medieval 
period, and surviving into modern times. 



74 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

his first appearance; which will not seem strange when I 
acquaint my reader that the lion has been changed upon the 
audience three several times. ' The first lion was a candle- 
snuffer,^ who, being a fellow of a testy choleric temper, over- 
did his part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so 
easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observed of 
him that he grew more surly every time he came out of the 
lion; and having dropped some words in ordinary conver- 
sation, as if he had not fought his best, and that he suffered 
himself to be thrown upon his back in the scuffle, and that 
he would wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased, out 
of his lion's skin, it was thought proper to discard him; and 
it is verily believed to this day that had he been brought upon 
the stage another time, he would certainly have done mis- 
chief. Besides, it was objected against the first lion that 
he reared himself so high upon his hinder paws, and walked 
in so erect a posture, that he looked more like an old man 
than a lion. 

The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the 
playhouse, and had the character of a mild and peaceable man 
in his profession. If the former was too furious, this was 
too sheepish, for his part; insomuch that, after a short 
modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch 
of Hydaspes, without grappling with him, and giving him 
an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips: it is 
said indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-color 
doublet, but this was only to make work for himself, in his 
private character of a tailor. I must not omit that it was 
this second lion who treated me with so much humanity 
behind the scenes. 

The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country 
gentleman, who does it for his diversion, but desires his name 
may be concealed. He says very handsomely in his own excuse, 

9. candle-snuffer. One who trimmed and snuffed the candles 
used for the lighting of the theater. 



ADDISON 75 

that he does not act for gain, that he indulges an innocent pleas- 
ure in it, and that it is better to pass away an evening in this 
manner than in gaming and drinking; but at the same time 
says, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that if his 
name should be known, the ill-natured world might call him 
"the ass in the lion's skin."^^ This gentleman's temper is made 
out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric 
that he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together 
greater audiences than have been known in the memory of 
man. 

I must not conclude my narrative without taking notice of 
a groundless report that has been raised, to a gentleman's 
disadvantage of whom I must declare myself an admirer; 
namely, that Signior Nicolini and the lion have been seen 
sitting peaceably by one another, and smoking a pipe together, 
behind the scenes; by which their common enemies would 
insinuate that it is but a sham combat which they represent 
upon the stage. But upon inquiry I find that if any such 
correspondence had passed between them, it was not till the 
combat was over, when the lion was to be looked upon as 
dead, according to the received rules of the drama. Besides, 
this is what is practiced every day in Westminster Hall,^^ 
where nothing is more usual than to see a couple of lawyers, 
who have been tearing each other to pieces in the court, 
embracing one another as soon as they are out of it. 

I would not be thought, in any part of this relation, to 
reflect upon Signior Nicolini, who in acting this part only 
complies with the wretched taste of his audience; he knows 
very well that the lion has many more admirers than him- 
self; as they say of the famous equestrian statue^^ on the 
Pont-Neuf at Paris, that more people go to see the horse 

10. ass in tlie lion's skin. As in ^^sop's fable. 

11. Westminster Hall. The ancient building- adjoining" the 
houses of Parliament, used by the courts in Addison's time. 

12. equestrian statue. The mounted fi&ure of Henry IV, on 
the New Bridge {Pont Neuf), 



76 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

than the king who sits upon it. 'On the contrary, it gives 
me a just indignation to see a person whose action gives new 
majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers, 
thus sinking from the greatness of his behavior, and degraded 
into the character of the London Prentice.^^ I have often 
wished that our tragedians would copy after this great master 
in action. Could they make the same use of their arms 
and legs, and inform their faces with as significant looks 
and passions, how glorious would an English tragedy appear 
with that action which is capable of giving a dignity to the 
forced thoughts, cold conceits, and unnatural expressions of 
an Italian opera. In the meantime, I have related this com- 
bat of the lion to show what are at present the reigning 
entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain. 

Audiences have often been reproached by writers for the 
coarseness of their taste, but our present grievance does not 
seem to be the want of a good taste, but of common sense. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY^ 

[The Spectator^ No. 26, Friday, March 30, 171L] 

When I am in a serious humor, I very often walk by myself 
in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominess of the place, 
and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the 
building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are 
apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather 
thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed 
a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the 
church, amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions 
that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most 
of them recorded nothing else of the buried person but that 

13. ILondon Preaitice. The hero of a story long popular amongr 

the lower classes, of an apprentice who traveled far and en- 

g^ag-ed in heroic adventures equal to those of high-born knights. 

1. With this essay it is interesting to compare one of Irving's 

In the Sketch Book, on the same theme. 



ADDISON 77 

he was born upon one day and died upon another: the whole 
history of his life being comprehended in those two cirieum- 
stances that are common to all mankind. I could not but 
look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or 
marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons, who 
had left no other memorial of them but that they were bom 
and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons 
mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have soundinsr 
names given them, for no other reason but that they may 
be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked 
on the head. 

riamov TE Mibovxd xe QeQoikoxov re. 

— Homer. 

Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque.2 

— Virgil. 

The life of these men is finely described in Holy Writ^ by 
^^the path of an arrow," which is immediately closed up and 
lost. 

Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself 
with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovelful of 
it that was thrown up the fragment of a bone or skull inter- 
mixed with a kind of fresh mouldering earth that some time 
or other had a place in the composition of a human body. 
Upon this, I began to consider with myself what innumer- 
able multitudes of people lay confused together under the 
pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, 
friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and preben- 
daries, were crumbled amongst one anothei', and blended 
together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and 

2. Crlaucuinq.ue, etc. Virgil's rendering' (JEneid, vi, 483) or a 
line in the Iliad (xvii, 216). 

3. Holy Writ. Probably the apocryphal book called The 
Wisdom of Solomon: 

As when an arrow is shot at a mark, 
The air disparted closeth up again immediately, 
So that men know not where it passed through: 
So we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be. 

(chap. V, 12-13.) 



/ 

78 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undis- 
tinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter. 

After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortal- 
ity, as it were, in the lump, I examined it more particularly 
by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments 
which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabric. 
Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs 
that, if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted 
with them^ he would blush at the praises which his friends 
have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively 
modest that they deliver the character of the person departed 
in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood 
once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found 
there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments 
which had no poets. I observed indeed that the present war 
had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monu- 
ments, w^hich had been erected to the memory of persons 
whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim,* 
or in the bosom of the ocean. 

I could not but be very much delighted with several modern 
epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression 
and justness of thought, and therefore do honor to the living 
as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to con- 
ceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness^ of a nation 
from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, 
they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning 
and genius before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesley 
Shovel's^ monument has very often given me great offense: 
instead of the brave rough English admiral, which was the 
distinguishing character of that plain, gallant man, he is 

4. Blenliein].. An Eng-lish victory in the war of the Spanish 
Succession (1701-13), won by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince 
Eug-ene of Austria, Aug-ust 13, 1704. Addison celebrated it in 
his early poem called "The Campaig-n." 

5. politeness. Polish, civilization, 

6. Sir Cloudesley Shovel. A British admiral who was drowned 
in the wreck of his ship off the Scilly Isles, in 1707. 



ADDISON 79 

represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in 
a long iDeriwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions 
under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable^ to 
the monument; for instead of celebrating the many remark- 
able actions he had performed in the service of his country, 
it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which 
it was impossible for him to reap any honor. The Dutch, 
whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an 
infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their 
buildings and works of this nature than what we meet with 
in those of our own country. The monuments of their 
admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, 
represent them like themselves, and are adorned with rostral^ 
crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea- 
weed, shells, and coral. 

But to return to our subject. I have left the repository 
of our English kings for the contemplation of another day,'-^ 
w^hen I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amuse- 
ment. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to 
raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy 
imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always 
serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can 
therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn 
scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and 
delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with 
those objects which others consider with terror. When I 
look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy 
dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every 
inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of 
parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; 
when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider 
the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly fol- 

7. is answerable. Corresponds. 

8. rostral. Adorned with fig-ures of ships' prows (rostra). 

9. another day. This promise was carried out in the 329th 
number of The Spectator. 



80 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

low. When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, 
when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy 
men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, 
I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little com- 
petitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read 
the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, 
and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day 
when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our 
appearance together. ^^ 

TRUE AND FALSE HUMOR 

[Spectator^ No. 35, Tuesday, April 10, 1711.] 

Among all kinds of writing, there is none in which authors 
are more apt to miscarry than in works of humor, as there is 
none in which they are more ambitious to excel. It is not an 
imagination that teems with monsters, an head that is filled 
with extravagant conceptions, which is capable of furnishing 
the world with diversions of this nature; and yet if we look 
into the productions of several writers, who set up for men 
of humor, what wild irregular fancies, what unnatural distor- 
tions of thought, do we meet with? If they speak nonsense, 
they believe they are talking humor; and when they have 
drawn together a scheme of absurd inconsistent ideas, they 
are not able to read it over to themselves without laughing. 
These poor gentlemen endeavor to gain themselves the repu- 
tation of wits and humorists, by such monstrous conceits^ 
as almost qualify them for Bedlam ;2 not considering that 
humor should always lie under the check of reason, and that 
it requires the direction of the nicest judgment, by so much 
the more as it indulges itself in the most boundless freedoms. 
There is a kind of nature that is to be observed in this sort of 

10. The closing sentences of this essay represent the highest 
reach of Addison's more serious style. 

1. conceits. Ideas (especially, novel or ingenious ones). 

2. Bedlam. Bethlehem hospital for the insane. 



ADDISON 81 

compositions, as well as in all other; and a certain regnlarity 
of thought which must discover^ the writer tb be a man of 
sense, at the same time that he appears altogether given up to 
caprice. For my part, when I read the delirious mirth of an 
unskilful author, I cannot be so barbarous as to divert myself 
with it, but am rather apt to pity the man than to laugh at 
anything he writes. 

The deceased Mr. Shadwell,*v who had himself a great deal 
of the talent which I am treating of, represents an empty rake, 
in one of his plays, as very much surprised to hear one say 
that breaking of windows was not humor; and I question not 
but several English readers will be as much startled to hear 
me afi&rm that many of those raving incoherent pieces which 
are often spread among us, under odd chimerical titles, are 
rather the offsprings of a distempered brain than works of 
humor. 

It is indeed much easier to describe what is not humor, than 
what is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as 
Cowley^ has done wit, by negatives. Were I to give my own 
notions of it, I would deliver them after Plato^s manner,^ 
in a kind of allegory, and by supposing Humor to be a person, 
deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the follow- 
ing genealogy. Truth was the founder of the family, and 
the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit, 
who married a lady of a collateral line called Mirth, by whom 

3. discover. Show. 

4. SliadwelL Dramatist and Poet Laureate; died 1692. 

5. Cowley. One of the most popular of the seventeenth cen- 
tury poets. Addison here refers to his poem "Of Wit," one 
stanza of v/hich runs as follows: 

'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage, 

When Bajazet begins to rage; 
Nor a tall metaphor in the bombast way, 
Nor the dry chips of short-lung'd Seneca; 

Nor upon all things to obtrude, 

And force some odd similitude. 
W^hat is it, then, which, like the Power Divine, 
We only can by negatives define? 

6. Plato's manner. The great Greek philosopher was dis- 
tinguished by a fondness for presenting ideas in mythical or 
symbolic form. 



82 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

he had issue Humor. Humor therefore being the youngest 
of this illustrious family, and descended from parents of such 
different dispositions, is very various and unequal in his 
temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave looks and 
a solemn habit, sometimes airy in his behavior, and fantastic 
in his dress: insomuch that at different times he appears as 
serious as a judge, and as jocular as a Merry- Andrew. '^ But 
as he has a great deal of the mother in his constitution, what- 
ever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh. 

But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him 
the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass 
for him in the world; to the end that well-meaning persons 
may not be imposed upon by cheats, I would desire my readers, 
when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, 
and to examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely 
allied to Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; if 
not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise 
distinguish him by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he 
seldom gets his company to join with him. For as True 
Humor generally looks serious, while everybody laughs about 
him, False Humor is always laughing, whilst everybody about 
him looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a 
mixture of both parents, that is, if he would pass for the 
offspring of Wit without Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you 
may conclude him to be altogether spurious and a cheat. 

The impostor of whom I am speaking descends originally 
from Falsehood, who was the mother of Nonsense, who was 
brought to bed of a son called Frenzy, who married one of 
the daughters of Folly, commonly known by the name of 
Laughter, on whom he begot that monstrous infant of which 
I have been here speaking. I shall set down at length the 
genealogical table of False Humor, and, at the same time, 
place under it the genealogy of True Humor, that the reader 
may at one view behold their different pedigrees and relations. 

7. Merry-Andrew. Mountebank, clown. 



ADDISON 83 

Falsehood 

Nonsense 

Frenzy Laughter 

False Humor 

Truth 

Good Sense 

Wit Mirth 

Humor 

I might extend the allegory, by mentioning several of the 
children of False Humor, who are more in number than the 
sands of the sea, and might in particular enumerate the many 
sons and daughters which he has begot in this island. But as 
this would be a very invidious task, I shall only observe in 
general, that False Humor differs from the True, as a monkey 
does from a man. 

First of all, he is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and 
buffooneries. 

Secondly, he so much delights in mimicry, that it is all one 
to him whether he exposes by it vice and folly, luxury and 
avarice, or, on the contrary, virtue and wisdom, pain and 
poverty. 

Thirdly, he is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will 
* bite the hand that feeds him, and endeavor to ridicule both 
friends and foes indifferently. For having but small talents, 
he must be merry where he can, not where he should. 

Fourthly, being entirely void of reason, he pursues no point 
either of morality or instruction, but is ludicrous only for the 
sake of being so. 

Fifthly, being incapable of any thing but mock representa- 
tions, his ridicule is always personal, and aimed at the vicious 
man, or the writer ; not at the vice, or at the writing. 

I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humor- 
ists ; but as one of my principal designs in this paper is to beat 
down that malignant spirit which discovers itself in the writ- 



84 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

ings of the present age, I shall not scruple, for the future, to 
single out any of the small wits that infest the world with such 
compositions as are ill-natured, immoral, and absurd. This is 
the only exception which I shall make to the general rule I 
have prescribed myself, of attacking multitudes; since every 
honest man ought to look upon himself as in a natural state 
of war with the libeller and lampooner, and to annoy them 
wherever they fall in his way. This is but retaliating upon 
them, and treating them as they treat others.® 



THE VISION OF MIRZAH^ 

[Tke Spectator^ No. 159. Saturday, September 1, 1711.] 

When I was at Grand Cairo,^ I picked up several oriental 
manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met 
with one, entitled The Visions of Mirzah, which I have read 
over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the public when 
I have no other entertainment for them; and shall begin with 
the first vision, which I have translated, word for word, as 
follows: 

"On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the cus- 
tom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having 
washed myself and offered up my morning devotions, I 
ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of 
the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing 
myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound 
contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from 
one thought to another. Surely, said I, man is but a shadow 

8. Addison further developed the subject of this paper in a 
whole series of Spectator essays, Numbers 58-63, on True and False 
Wit 

1. This paper is perhaps the most famous example, in Eng- 
lish, of the essay In the form of an apologue, or symbolic moral 
tale. 

2. Grand Cairo. In the first number of the Spectator the imag- 
inary writer, in giving some account of his life, had said: "Upon 
the death of my , father, I resolved to travel. ... I made a 
voyage to Grand Cairo on purpose to take the measure of a 
pyramid." 



ADDISON 85 

and life a dream. Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes 
toward the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where 
I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical 
instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him, he applied it 
to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was 
exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were 
inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different frOm any 
thing I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly 
airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon 
their first arrival in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of 
the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that 
happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures. 

"I had been often told that the rock before me was the 
haunt of a genius,^ and that several had been entertained with 
music who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician 
had before made himself visible. When he had raised my 
thoughts, by those transporting airs which he played, to taste 
the pleasures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like 
one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his 
hand directed me to approach the place where he sat. I drew 
near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature; 
and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating 
strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The 
genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affabil- 
ity that familiarized him to my imagination, and at once dis- 
pelled all the fears and apprehensions with which I approached 
him. He lifted me from the ground, and taking me by the 
hand, ^Mirzah,' said he, ^I have heard thee in thy soliloquies; 
follow me.' 

"He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and 
placing me on the top of it, ^Cast thy eyes eastward,^ said he, 
*and tell me what thou seest.' ^I see,' said I, ^a huge valley 
and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it.' 'The val- 
ley that thou seest,' said he, 'is the vale of misery, and the 

3. grenius. Spirit. 



86 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

tide of water that thou seest is part of the great tide of 
eternity/ What is the reason/ said I, ^that the tide I see rises 
out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick 
mist at the other?' What thou seest/ said he, ^is that portion 
of eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and 
reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation. 
Examine now,' said he, ^this sea that is bounded with darkness 
at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it/ ^I see 
a bridge,' said I, ^standing in the midst of the tide.' ^The 
bridge thou seest,' said he, ^is human life; consider it atten* 
tively.' Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it 
consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, with several 
broken arches, which, added to those that were entire, made 
up the number about an hundred. As I was counting the 
arches, the' genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of 
a thousand arches ; but that a great flood swept away the rest, 
and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. 
*But tell me further,' said he, Svhat thou discoverest on it.' 
^I see multitudes of people passing over it,' said I, ^and a 
black cloud hanging on each end of it.' As I looked more 
attentively, I saw several of the passengers dropping through 
the bridge, into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and 
upon further examination, perceived there were innumerable 
trap-doors that lay concealed in the bridge, which the pas- 
sengers no sooner trod upon but they fell through them into 
the tide and immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls 
were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that 
throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud but many 
of them fell into them. They grew thinner toward the middle, 
but multiplied and lay closer together together toward the end 
of the arches that were entire. 

"There were indeed some persons, but their number was very 
small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken 
arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired 
and spent with so long a walk. 



ADDISON 87 

^^I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful 
structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented. 
My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several drop- 
ping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catch- 
ing at every thing that stood by them *to save themselves. 
Some were looking up towards the heavens in a thoughtful 
posture, and in the midst of a speculation stumbled and fell 
out of sight.* Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of 
bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced before them, 
but often when they thought themselves within the reach of 
them their footing failed and down they sunk. In this con- 
fusion of objects, I observed some with scimitars in their 
hands, and others with urinals,^ who ran to and fro upon the 
bridge, thrusting several persons on trap-doors which did not 
seem to lie in their way, and which they might have escaped 
had they not been thus forced upon them. 

"The genius, seeing me indulge myself in this melancholy 
prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it: ^Take 
thine eyes off the bridge,' said he, ^and tell me if thou yet 
seest any thing thou dost not comprehend.' Upon looking up, 
^What mean,' said I, ^those great flights of birds that are per- 
petually hovering about the bridge, and settling upon it from 
time to time ? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants ; and 
among many other feathered creatures several little winged 
boys that perch in great numbers upon the middle arches.' 
^These,' said the genius, ^are envy, avarice, superstition, despair, 
love, with the like cares and passions, that infest human life/ 

"I here fetched a deep sigh. ^Alas,' said I, ^man was made 
in vain ! How is he given away to misery and mortality ! tor- 
tured in life, and swallowed up in death!' The genius being 
moved with compassion toward me, bid me quit so uncomfort- 
able a prospect : ^Look no more,' said he, ^on man in the first 
stage of his existence, in his setting out for eternity; but, cast 
thine eye on that thick mist into which the tide bears the 

4. urinals. Testing-glasses used by physicians. 



88 ESSAYS—ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

several generations of mortals that fall into it/ I directed 
my sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the good genius 
strengthened it with any supernatural force, or dissipated part 
of the mist that was before too thick for the eye to penetrate) 
I saw the valley opening at the further end, and spreading 
forth into an immense ocean, that had a huge rock of adamant 
running through the midst of it, and dividing it into two equal 
parts. The clouds still rested on one half of it, insomuch that I 
could discover nothing in it, but the other appeared to me a vast 
ocean planted with innumerable islands, that were covered with 
fruits and flowers, and interwoven with a thousand little shining 
seas that ran among them. I could see persons dressed in 
glorious habits, with garlands upon their heads, passing among 
the trees, lying down by the sides of fountains, or resting on 
beds of flowers; and could hear a confused harmony of 
singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and musical instru- 
ments. Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so delight- 
ful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle that I might 
fly away to those happy seats; but the genius told me there 
was no passage to them, except through the gates of death that 
I saw opening every moment upon the bridge. 'The islands,' 
said he, 'that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with 
which the whole face of the ocean appears spotted as far as 
thou canst see, are more in number than the sands on the sea- 
shore; there are myriads of islands behind those which thou 
here diseoverest, reaching fui-ther than thine eye or even thine 
imagination can extend itself. These are the mansions of 
good men after death, who, according to the degi^ee and kinds 
of virtue in which they excelled, are distributed among these 
several islands, which abound with pleasures of different kinds 
and degrees, suitable to the relishes and perfections of those 
who are settled in them; every island is a paradise accom- 
modated to its respective inhabitants. Are not these, Mirzah, 
habitations worth contending for? Does life appear miserable, 
that gives thee opportunities of earning such a reward? Is 



ADDISON 89 

death to be feared, that will convey thee to so happy an exist- 
ence? Think not man was made in vain, who has such an 
eternity reserved for him/ I gazed with inexpressible pleasure 
on these happy islands. At length said I, ^Show me now, I 
beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds 
which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of adamant.' 
The genius making me no answer, I turned about to address 
myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me; 
I then turned again to the vision which I had been so long con- 
templating, but instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, 
and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow val- 
ley of Bagdat, with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the 
sides of it/' 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 

[Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield in 1709. He entered 
Pembroke College, Oxford, but left without a degree for lack of 
means; he was a precocious scholar, but always in poor health. 
After an unsuccessful period as schoolmaster, he engaged in 
literary hack-work in London, reporting the debates in Parlia- 
ment, planning a new edition of Shakespeare, and contributing to 
periodicals. In 1750 he founded The Rambler, a short-lived periodi- 
cal in the manner of The Spectator. His English Dictionary, an 
epochal work for the time, appeared in 1755. From this time 
Johnson was recognized as a scholar and critic of importance, 
and in 1775 Oxford University conferred on him the honorary 
degree of LL-D. He lived always in London lodgings, in com- 
paratively meager circumstances, but was the center of an inter- 
esting social group, especially in the "Literary Club" made up 
of m_en of letters and wits, — commonly called simply Dr. Johnson's 
Club. His last important writings were the critical Lives of the 
English Poets, 1779-81; he died in 1784. Dr. Johnson's character, 
especially as depicted by his friend Boswell in his great biog- 
raphy, is distinguished for its eccentricity, sturdiness, and clear- 
sightedness. Though melancholy and dogmatic in temperament, 
he v/as profoundly friendly and just; "clear your mind of cant" 
is one of his sayings considered to be essentially characteristic 
of the man.] 



THE REVOLUTIONS OF A GARRET^ 

[Bamhler, No. 161. Tuesday j October 1^ 1751.] 

Mr. Rambler^ 

Sir, 
You have formerly observed that curiosity often terminates 
in barren knowledge, and that the mind is prompted to study 

1. For The Rambler (and The Idler), see the Introduction, page 
10. The present essay is a fine example of the somewhat ponder- 
ous and grim, but genuine and pathetic, humor with which 
Johnson viewed common life. In reading his essays the modern 
reader must make allowance for his habit of beginning with some 
abstract idea or generalization, which at first gives no direct 
clue to the subject. 

90 



JOHNSON 91 

and inquiry rather by the uneasiness of ignorance than the 
hope of profit. Nothing can be of less importance to any 
present interest than the fortune of those who have been long 
lost in the grave, and from whom nothing now can be hoped or 
feared. Yet to rouse the zeal of a true antiquary, little more 
is necessary than to mention a name which mankind have cpn- 
spired to forget; he will make his way to remote scenes of 
action through obscurity and contradiction, as Tully^ sought 
amidst bushes and brambles the tomb of Archimedes. 

It is not easy to discover how it concerns him that gathers 
the produce, or receives the rent of an estate, to know through 
what families the land has passed, who is registered in the 
Conqueror's survey^ as its possessor, how often it has been 
forfeited by treason, or how often sold by prodigality. The 
power or wealth of the present inhabitants of a country can- 
not be much increased by an inquiry after the names of those 
barbarians who destroyed one another twenty centuries ago, 
in contests for the shelter of woods or convenience of pastur- 
age. Yet we see that no man can be at rest in the enjoyment 
of a new purchase till he has learned the history of his grounds 
from the ancient inhabitants of the parish, and that no nation 
omits to record the actions of their ancestors, however bloody, 
savage, and rapacious. 

The same disposition, as different opportunities call it forth, 
discovers itself in great or little things. I have always thought 
it unworthy of a wise man to slumber in total inactivity, only 
because he happens to have no employment equal to his 
ambition or genius; it is therefore my custom to apply my 
attention to the objects before me, and as I cannot think any 
place wholly unworthy of notice that affords a habitation to 

2. TuUy. Cicero. When Cicero held the office of quaestor in 
Sicily, 75 B.C., he discovered the tomb of Archimedes, a great 
Syracusan mathematician of the third century b.c. 

3. tlie Conqueror's survey. William the Conqueror in 1086 
ordered a survey and census of the landholders of the king-dom, 
in order to apportion their liability to taxation and military serv- 
ice. The result was the famous "Domesday Book." 



92 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

a man of letters, I have collected the history and antiquities 
of the several garrets in which I have resided. 

Quantulacunque estis, vos ego magna voco.^ 

How small to others, but how great to me! 

^any of these narratives my industry has been able to 
extend to a considerable length; but the woman with whom I 
now lodge has lived only eighteen months in the house, and 
can give no account of its ancient revolutions; the plasterer 
having at her entrance obliterated, by his whitewash, all the 
smoky memorials which former tenants had left upon the 
ceiling, and perhaps drawn the veil of oblivion over politicians, 
philosophers, and poets. 

When I first cheapened^ my lodgings, the landlady told me 
that she hoped I was not an author, for the lodgers on the firsf 
floor had stipulated that the upper rooms should not be occu- 
pied by a noisy trade. I very readily promised to give no 
disturbance to her family, and soon dispatched a bargain on 
the usual terms. 

I had not slept many nights in my new apartment before 
I began to inquire after my predecessors, and found my land- 
lady, whose imagination is filled chiefly with her own affairs, 
very ready to give me information. 

Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as 
pleasure. Before she began her narrative, I had heated my 
head with expectations of adventures and discoveries, of 
elegance in disguise, and learning in distress; and was some- 
what mortified when I heard that the first tenant was a tailor, 
of whom nothing was remembered but that he complained of 
his room for want of light; and, after having lodged in it a 
month, and paid only a week's rent, pawned a piece of cloth 
which he was trusted to cut out, and was forced to make a 
precipitate retreat from this quarter of the town. 

4. Quantulacunque estis, etc. From Ovid's Amores. 

5. cheapened. Bargained for. 



JOHNSON 93 

The next was a young woman newly arrived from the coun- 
try, who lived for five weeks with great regularity, and became, 
by frequent treats, very much the favorite of the family, 
but at last received visits so frequently from a cousin in Cheap- 
side, that she brought the reputation of the house into danger, 
and was therefore dismissed with good advice. 

The room then stood empty for a fortnight; my landlady 
began to think that she had judged hardly, and often wished 
for such another lodger. At last an elderly man of a grave 
aspect read the bill, and bargained for the room at the very- 
first price that was asked. He lived in close retirement, seldom 
went out till evening, and then returned early, sometimes 
cheerful, and at other times dejected. It was remarkable 
^that, whatever he purchased, he never had small money in his 
pocket, and, though cool and temperate on other occasions, was 
always vehement and stormy till he received his change. He 
paid his rent with great exactness, and seldom failed once a 
week to requite my landlady's civility with a supper. At last, 
such is the fate of human felicity, the house was alarmed at 
midnight by the constable, who demanded to search the gar- 
rets. My landlady assuring him that he had mistaken the 
door, conducted him upstairs, where he found the tools of a 
coiner;^ but the tenant had crawled along the roof to an empty 
house, and escaped; much to the joy of my landlady, who 
declares him a very honest man, and wonders why any body 
should be hanged for making money when such numbers are 
in want of it. She however confesses that she shall for the 
future always question the character of those who take her 
garret without beating down the price. 

The bill was then placed again in the window, and the poor 
woman was teased for seven weeks by innumerable passengers, 
who obliged her to climb with them every hour up five stories, 
and then disliked the prospect, hated the noise of a public 
street, thought the stairs narrow, objected to a low ceiling, 
6. coiner. Counterfeiter. 



94 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

required the walls to be hung with a fresher paper, asked 
questions about the neighborhood, could not think of living 
so far from their acquaintance, wished the windows had looked 
to the south rather than the west, told how the door and chim- 
ney might have been better disposed, bid her half the price 
that she asked, or promised to give her earnest^ the next day, 
and came no more. 

At last, a short meager man, in a tarnished waistcoat, 
desired to see the garret, and, when he had stipulated for two 
long shelves and a larger table, hired it at a low rate. When 
the affair was completed, he looked round him with great satis- 
faction, and repeated some words which the woman did not 
understand. In two days he brought a gi'eat box of books, 
took possession of his room, and lived very inoffensively, 
except that he frequently disturbed the inhabitants of the next 
floor by unseasonable noises. He was generally in bad at noon, 
but from evening to midnight he sometimes talked aloud with 
great vehemence, sometimes stamped as in a rage, sometimes 
threw down his poker, then clattered his chairs, then sat down 
in deep thought, and again burst out into loud vociferations; 
sometimes he would sigh, as oppressed with misery, and some- 
times shake with convulsive laughter. When he encountered 
any of the family, he gave way or bowed, but rarely spoke, 
except that as he went upstairs he often repeated, 

— ^'Og vjiigxaxa 8co[xaTa vaiei, 

This habitant th'aerial regions boast, — § 

hard words, to which his neighbors listened so often that 
they learned them without understanding them. What was his 
employment she did not venture to ask him, but at last heard 
a printer's boy inquire for "the author." My landlady was 
very often advised to beware of this strange man, who, though 
he was quiet for the present, might perhaps become outrageous 

7. earnest. A payment **to bind the bargain." 

8. This habitant, etc. From Hesiod's Works and Days, where it 
is said of the g-od Zeus. 



JOHNSON 95 

in the hot months; but as she was punctually paid, she could 
not find any sufficient reason for dismissing him, till one night 
he convinced her, by setting fire to his curtains, that it was 
not safe to have an author for her inmate. 

She had then, for six weeks, a succession of tenants, who 
left her house on Saturday, and, instead of paying their rent, 
stormed at their landlady. At last she took in two sisters, one 
of whom had spent her little fortune in procuring remedies 
for a lingering disease, and was now supported and attended 
by the other. She climbed with difficulty to the apartment, 
where she languished for eight weeks without impatience or 
lamentation, except for the expense and fatigue which her 
sister suffered, and then calmly and contentedly expired. The 
sister followed her to the grave, paid the few debts which they 
had contracted, wiped away the tears of useless sorrow, and, 
returning to the business of common life, resigned to me the 
vacant habitation. 

Such, Mr. Rambler, are the changes which have happened 
in the narrow space where my present fortune has fixed my 
residence. So true it is that amusement and instruction are 
always at hand for those who have skill and willingness to 
find them; and so just is the observation of Juvenal,^ that a 
J single house will show whatever is done or suffered in the 
f world. 

I am. Sir, &c. 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF BOOKS 

[Idler, No, 85, Saturday, December 1, 1759,] 

One of the peculiarities which distinguish the present age 
is the multiplication of books. Every day brings new adver- 
tisements of literary undertakings, and we are flattered with 
repeated promises of growing wise on easier terms than our 
progenitors. 

9. Juvenal. A Latin satirist of the second century. 



96 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

How much either happiness or knowledge is advanced by 
this multitude of authors, it is not very easy to decide. He 
that teaches us any thing which we knew not before, is 
undoubtedly to be reverenced as a master. He that conveys 
knowledge by more pleasing ways, may very properly be loved 
as a benefactor ; and he that supplies life with innocent amuse- 
ment will certainly be caressed as a pleasing companion. But 
few of those who fill the world with books have any preten- 
sions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have 
often no other task than to lay two books before them, out of 
Avhich they compile a third, without any new materials of their 
own, and with very little application of judgment to those 
which former authors have supplied. 

That all compilations are useless, I do not assert. Particles 
of science are often very widely scattered. Writers of exten- 
sive comprehension have incidental remarks upon topics very 
remote from the principal subject, which are often more 
valuable than formal treatises, and which yet are not known 
because they are not promised in the title. He that collects 
those under proper heads is very laudably employed, for 
though he exerts no great abilities in the work, he facilitates 
the progress of others, and, by making that easy of attainment 
which is already written, may give some mind, more vigorous 
or more adventurous than his own, leisure for new thoughts 
and original designs. 

But the collections poured lately from the press have been 
seldom made at any great expense of time or inquiry, and 
therefore only serve to distract choice without supplying any 
real want. It is observed that "a corrupt society has many 
laws"; I know not whether it is not equally true that an 
ignorant age has many books. When the treasures of ancient 
/ knowledge lie unexamined, and original authors are neglected 
and forgotten, compilers and plagiaries are encouraged, who 
give us again what we had before, and grow great by setting 
before us what our own sloth had hidden from our view. 






JOHNSON 97 

Yet are not even these writers to be indiscriminately cen- 
sured and rejected. Truth, like beauty, varies its fashions, 
and is best recommended by different dresses to different 
minds; and he that recalls the attention of mankind to any 
part of learning which time has left behind it, may be truly 
said to advance the literature of his own age. As the manners 
of nations vary, new topics of persuasion become necessary, 
and new combinations of imagery are produced; and he that 
can accommodate himself to the reigning taste may always 
have readers who, perhaps, would not have looked upon better 
performances. To exact of every man who writes that he 
should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a 
small number; to oblige the most fertile genius to say only 
what is new, would be to contract his volumes to a few pages. 
Yet surely there ought to be some bounds to repetition; libra- 
ries ought no more to be heaped for ever with the same 
thoughts differently expressed, than with the same books dif- 
ferently decorated. 

The good or evil w^hich these secondary writers produce is 
seldom of any long duration. As they owe their existence to 
change of fashion, they commonly disappear when a new 
fashion becomes prevalent. The authors that in any nation 
last from age to age are very few, because there are very few 
that have any other claim to notice than that they catch hold 
on present curiosity, and gratify some accidental desire, or 
produce some temporary conveniency. 

But however the writers of the day may despair of future 
fame, they ought at least to forbear any present mischief. /^ 
Though they cannot arrive at eminent heights of excellence, i) 
they might keep them.selves harmless. They might take care v 
to inform themselves, before they attempt to inform others, and ^^ 
exert the little influence which they have for honest purposes. ^^^"^^^ 

But such is the present state of our literature, that tlie 

ancient sage,^ who thought "a great book a great evil," would 

1. ancient sasre. Callimachus, an Alexandrian scholar of the 
third century b.c. 



98 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

now think the multitude of books a multitude of evils. He 
Avould consider a bulky writer who engrossed a year, and a 
swarm of pamphleteers who stole each an hour, as equal wasters 
of human life, and would make no other difference between 
them than between a beast of prey and a flight of locusts. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

[Oliver Goldsmith was born in the villag-e of Pallas, Ireland, 
in 1728. He entered Trinity CoUe&e at Dublin, but was a poor 
student and was graduated "by special favor." Later he studied 
medicine in Scotland and on the continent, and wandered adven- 
turously through various European countries, returning to Lon« 
don in destitution about 1756. He now did hack-work of various 
kinds for publishers, and presently attained some reputation by 
his pen, but was usually in debt and often in difficulties arising- 
from ioumalistic quarrels. One of his principal pleasures was 
his friendship with Dr. Johnson, who procured the publication 
of Goldsmith's chief work. The Vicar of Wakefield, in 1766. He is 
also remembered for a permanently successful comedy. She Stoops 
to Conquer. When he died, in 1774, Dr. Johnson wrote a Latin 
epitaph for his monument in Westminster Abbey (thoug-h he 
was buried elsewhere), in which occurs the famous saying: 
"There is almost no kind of composition which he did not touch, 
and nothing he touched which he did not adorn,"] 



A SERVICE AT ST. PAUL'S 

[The Citizen of the World,^ Letter XLI.] 

Some time since I sent thee, holy disciple of Confucius, 
an account of the grand abbey,^ or mausoleum, of the kings 
and heroes of this nation. I have since been introduced to a 
temple not so ancient,^ but far superior in beauty and mag- 
nificence. In this, which is the most considerable of the empire, 
there are no pompous inscriptions, no flattery paid the dead, 
but all is elegant and awfully simple. There are, however, a 

1. On The Citizen of the World, from which these essays are 
taken, see the Introduction, page 11. 

2. the grand abbey. Westminster, described by the writer in 
his 13th Letter. 

3. not so ancient. The oHginal St. Paul's Cathedral had been 
destroyed in the fire of 1666; the structure here described, which 
still stands, was built in 1675-1710. 

99 



100 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

few rags* hung round the walls, which have, at a vast expense, 
been taken from the enemy in the present war.^ The silk of 
Avhich they are composed, when new, might be valued at half 
a string of copper money in China; yet this wise people fitted 
out a fleet and an army in order to seize them, though now 
grown old, and scarcely capable of being patched up into a 
handkerchief. By this conquest the English are said to have 
gained, and the French to have lost, much honor. Is the honor 
of European nations placed only in tattered silk? 

In this temple I was permitted to remain during the whole 
service; and were you not already acquainted with the religion 
of the English, you might from my description be inclined to 
believe them as grossly idolatrous as the disciples of Lao. The 
idoP which they seem to address strides like a colossus over the 
door of the inner temple, which here, as with the Jews, is 
esteemed the most sacred part of the building. Its oracles are 
delivered in a hundred various tones, which seem to inspire 
the worshipers with enthusiasm and awe. An old woman, 
who appeared to be the priestess, was employed in various 
attitudes as she felt the inspiration. When it began to speak, 
all the people remained fixed in silent attention, nodding as- 
sent, looking approbation, appearing highly edified by those 
sounds which to a stranger might seem inarticulate and 
unmeaning. 

When the idol had done speaking, and the priestess had 
locked up its lungs with a key, observing almost all the com- 
pany leaving the temple, I concluded the service was over, 
and, taking my hat, was going to walk away with the crowd, 
when I was stopped by the Man in Black,^ who assured me 
that the ceremony had scarcely yet begun. 

4. ragrs. It is still customary to hang" national battle trophies 
in St. Paul's. 

5. present war. The war which was ended in the followingr 

year (1763) by the Peace of Paris. 

6. The Idol. The great org-an. 

7. the Man in Black. Tl'e gentleman who guides the Chinese 
traveler about London. 



GOLDSMITH 101 

"What!" cried I. "Do I not see almost the whole body oi 
worshipers leaving the church? Would you persuade mo 
that such numbers who profess religion and morality would, in 
this shameless manner, quit the temple before the service was 
concluded? You surely mistake; not even the Kalmouks* 
would be guilty of such an indecency, though all the object of 
their worship was but a joint-stool." 

My friend seemed to blush for his countrymen, assuring me 
that those whom I saw running away were only a parcel of 
musical blockheads, whose passion was merely for sounds, and 
whose heads were as empty as a fiddle-case. "Those who 
remain behind," says he, "are the true religious. They make 
use of music to warm their hearts, and to lift them to a proper 
pitch of rapture. Examine their behavior, and you will con- 
fess there are some among us who practice true devotion." 

I now looked round me as he directed, but saw nothing of 
that fervent devotion which he had promised. One of the 
worshipers appeared to be ogling the company through a glass. 
Another was fervent, not in addresses to heaven, but to his 
mistress; a third whispered; a fourth took snuff; and the 
priest himself, in a drowsy tone, read over the "duties" of the day. 

"Bless my eyes !" cried I, as I happened to look toward the 
door, "what do I see ? One of the worshipers fallen fast asleep, 
and actually sunk down on his cushion! He is now enjoying 
the benefit of a trance; or does he receive the influence of 
some mysterious vision?" 

"Alas ! alas !" replied my companion. "No such thing. He 
has only had the misfortune of eating too hearty a dinner, and 
finds it impossible to keep his eyes open." 

Turning to another part of the temple, I perceived a young 
lady just in the same circumstances and attitude. "Strange !" 
cried I. "Can she too have overeaten herself?" 

"Oh, fie!" replied my friend, "you now grow censorious. 
She grow drowsy from eating too much ! That would be pro- 
8. EaluLOiJLS. Nomadic Mong-olians of western China. 



102 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

fanation. She only sleeps now from having sat up all night 
at a brag^ party." 

"Turn me where I will, then," says I, "I can perceive no 
single symptom of devotion among the worshipers, except from 
that old woman in the corner, who sits groaning behind the 
long sticks of a mourning fan. She indeed seems greatly 
edified with what she hears." 

"Ay," replied my friend, "I knew we should find some to 
«atch you. I know her ; that is the deaf lady who lives in the 
cloisters." 

In short, the remissness of behavior in almost all the wor- 
shipers, and some even of the guardians, struck me with sur- 
prise. I had been taught to believe that none were ever pro- 
moted to offices in the temple but men remarkable for their 
superior sanctity, learning, and rectitude; that there was no 
such thing heard of as persons being introduced into the 
church^^ merely to oblige a senator, or provide for the younger 
branch of a noble family. I expected, as their minds were con- 
tinually set upon heavenly things, to see their eyes directed 
there also, and hoped from their behavior to perceive their 
inclinations corresponding with their duty. But I am since 
informed that some are appointed to preside over temples they 
never visit,^^ and, while they receive all the money, are con- 
tented with letting others do all the good. — Adieu. 

THE CHARACTER OF BEAU TIBBS 

[The Citizen of the World, Letter LIY.] 

Though naturally pensive, yet am I fond of gay company, 
and take every opportunity of thus dismissing the mind from 

9. Tbragr. The old name for poker. 

10. Introduced into the churcli. That is, into the priesthood, 

and g-iven a "living" or endowed pastorate. 

11. temples they never visit. A reference to the custom of 
turning over the care of an endowed living to a poorly paid 
curate; this was complained of by Chaucer in his Prologue to the 
Canterbtiry Tales, as early as the fourteenth century, and remained 
la subject of criticism in the Church of England well into the 
nineteenth. 



GOLDSMITH 103 

duty. From this motive I am often found in the center of a 
crowd; and wherever pleasure is to be sold, am always a pur- 
chaser. In those places, without being remarked by any, I 
join in whatever goes forward ; work my passions into a simil- 
itude of frivolous earnestness, shout as they shout, and con- 
demn as they happen to disapprove. A mind thus sunk for 
a while below its natural standard is qualified for stronger 
flights, as those first retire who would spring forward with 
greater vigor. 

Attracted by the serenity of the evening, my friend and 1 
lately went to gaze upon the company in one of the public 
walks near the city. Here we sauntered together for some 
time, either praising the beauty of such as were handsome, or 
the dresses of such as had nothing else to recommend them. 
We had gone thus deliberately forward for some time, when, 
stopping on a sudden, my friend caught me by the elbow, and 
led me out of the public walk. I could perceive by the quick- 
ness of his pace, and by his frequently looking behind, that he 
was attempting to avoid somebody who followed: we now 
turned to the right, then to the left; as we went forward, he 
still went faster; but in vain: the person whom he attempted 
to escape hunted us through every doubling, and gained upon 
us each moment, so that at last we fairly stood still, resolving 
to face what we could not avoid. 

Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us with all the 
familiarity of an old acquaintance. ^^My dear Drybone,'' 
cries he, shaking my friend's hand, "where have you been 
hiding yourself this half a century? Positively I had fancied 
you were gone to cultivate matrimony and your estate in the 
country.'^ During the reply I had an opportunity of survey- 
ing the appearance of our new companion: his hat was 
pinched up with peculiar smartness; his looks were pale, thin, 
and sharp ; round his neck he wore a broad black riband, and 
in his bosom a buckle studded with glass ; his coat was trimmed 
with tarnished twist ; he wore by his side a sword with a black 



104 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

hilt; and his stockings of silk, though newly washed were 
grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged with 
the peculiarity of his dress that I attended only to the latter 
part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs 
on the taste of his clothes, and the bloom in his countenance. 
"Pshaw, pshaw. Will," cried the figure, ^^no more of that, if 
you love me: you know I hate flattery, — on my soul I do; and 
yet, to be sure, an intimacy with the great will improve one's 
appearance, and a course of venison will fatten; and yet, 
faith, I despise the great as much as you do; but there are a 
great many damned honest fellows among them, and we must 
not quarrel with one half, because the other wants weeding. 
If they were all such as my Lord Mudler, one of the most 
good-natured creatures that ever squeezed a lemon, I should 
myself be among the number of their admirers. I was yester- 
day to dine at the Duchess of Piccadilly's. My lord was there. 
*Ned,^ says he to me, ^Ned,^ says he, 'I'll hold gold to silver I 
can tell where you were poaching last night.' 'Poaching, my 
lord?' says I: 'faith, you have missed already; for I stayed 
at home, and let the girls poach for me. That's my way; I 
take a fine woman as some animals do their prey — stand still, 
and, swoop, they fall into my mouth.' '^ 

"Ah, Tibbs, thou art a happy fellow," cried my companion, 
with looks of infinite pity; "I hope your fortune is as much 
improved as your understanding in such company?'^ 

"Improved!" replied the other: "you shall know, — but let 
it go no farther — a great secret — five hundred a year to begin 
with — ^my lord's word of honor for it. His lordship took me 
down in his own chariot yesterday, and we had a tete-a-tete 
dinner in the country, where we talked of nothing else." 

"I fancy you forget, sir," cried I; "you told us but this 
moment of your dining yesterday in town." 

"Did I say so ?" replied he coolly. "To be sure, if I said so, 
it was so. Dined in town ! Egad, now I do remember, I did 
dine in town; but I dined in the country too; for you must 



GOLDSMITH 105 

know, my boys, I eat two dinners. By the by, I am gTOwn as 
nice^ as the devil in my eating. I'll tell you a pleasant affair 
about that: we were a select party of us to dine at Lady Gro- 
gram's, — an affected piece, but let it go no farther — a secret. — 
Weil, there happened to be no asafoBtida in the sauce to a tur- 
key, upon which, says I, ^I'll hold a thousand guineas, and say 
done first, that' — But, dear Drybone, you are an honest 
creature ; lend me half-a-erown for a minute or two, or so, just 
till — but harkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it 
may be twenty to one but I forget to pay you.'' 

When he left us, our conversation naturally turned upon so 
extraordinary a character. ^^His very dress," cries my friend, 
"is not less extraordinary than his conduct. If you meet him 
this day, you find him in rags; if the next, in embroidery. 
With those persons of distinction of whom he talks so famil- 
iarly he has scarce a coffee-house acquaintance. However, both 
for the interests of society, and perhaps for his own, Heavea 
has made him poor; and while all the world perceive his 
wants, he fancies them concealed from every eye. An agree- 
able companion, because he understands flattery; and all must 
be pleased with the first part of his conversation, though all 
are sure of its ending with a demand on their purse. While 
his youth countenances the levity of his conduct, he may thus 
earn a precarious subsistence; but when age comes on, the 
gravity of which is incompatible with buffoonery, then will he 
find himself forsaken by all; condemned in the decline of life 
to hang upon some rich family whom he once despised, there 
to undergo all the ingenuity of studied contempt, to be em- 
ployed only as a spy upon the servants, or a bugbear to fright 
the children into obedience." — Adieu. 

[Letter LV.] 

I am apt to fancy I have contracted a new acquaintance 
whom it will be no easy matter to shake off. My little beau^ 

1. nipe. Fastidious. 

2. beau. Dandy. 



106 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND i^IERICAN 

yesterday overtook me again in one of the public walks, and, 
slapping me on the shoulder, saluted me with an air of the 
most perfect familiarity. His dress was the same as usual, 
except that he had more powder in his hair, wore a dirtier 
shirt, a pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm. 

As I knew him to be a harmless, amusing little thing, I 
could not return his smiles with any degTee of severity : so we 
walked forward on terms of the utmost intimacy, and in a 
few minutes discussed all the topics preliminary to particular 
conversation. The oddities that marked his character, however, 
soon began to appear; he bowed to several well-dressed per- 
sons, who, by their manner of returning the compliment, 
appeared perfect strangers. At intervals he drew out a pocket- 
book,^ seeming to take memorandums, before all the company, 
with much importance and assiduity. In this manner he led 
me through the length of the whole walk, fretting at his absurd- 
ities, and fancying myself laughed at not less than him by 
every spectator. 

When we were got to the end of our procession, "Blast me," 
cries he, with an air of vivacity, "I never saw the Park so thin 
in my life before ! There's no company at all today ; not a 
single face to be seen.'' 

"No company!" interrupted I peevishly; "no company, 
where there is such a crowd? Why, man, there's too much. 
What are the thousands that have been laughing at us but 
company V 

"Lord, my dear," returned he, with the utmost good humor, 
"you seem immensely chagrined ; but, blast me, when the world 
laughs at me, I laugh at the world, and so we are even. My 
Lord Tripp, Bill Squash the Creolian, and I, sometimes make 
a party at being ridiculous; and so we say and do a thousand 
things for the joke's sake. But I see you are grave, and if 
you are for a fine grave sentimental companion, you shall dine 
with me and my wife today; I must insist on't. I'll introduce 

3. pocket"T30o3c. Note-book. 



GOLDSMITH 107 

you to Mrs. Tibbs, a lady of as elegant qualifications as any 
in nature; she was bred, but that's between ourselves, under 
the inspection of the Countess of Ail-Night. A charming body 
of voice ; but no more of that, — she shall give us a song. You 
shall see my little girl too, Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Tibbs, 
a sweet pretty creature! I design her for my Lord Drum- 
stick's eldest son ; but that's in friendship, let it go no farther ; 
she's but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, and plays 
on the guitar immensely already. I intend she shall be as per- 
fect as possible in every accomplishment. In the first place,. 
I'll make her a scholar: I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn 
that language purposely to instruct her; but let that be a 
secret." 

Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by 
the arm, and hauled me along. We passed through many dark 
alleys and winding ways; for, from some motives to me 
unknown, he seemed to have a particular aversion to every fre- 
quented street ; at last, however, we got to the door of a dismal 
looking house in the outlets of the town, where he informed 
me he chose to reside for the benefit of the air. 

We entered the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most 
hospitably open; and I began to ascend an old and creaking 
staircase, when, as he mpunted to show me the way, he 
demanded whether I delighted in prospects ;^ to which answer- 
ing in the affirmative, "Then," says he, "I shall show you one of 
the most charming in the w^orld out of my windows; we shall 
see the ships sailing, and the whole country for twenty miles 
round, tip-top, quite high. My Lord Swamp would give ten 
thousand guineas for such a one ; but, as I sometimes pleasantly' 
tell him, I always love to keep my prospects at home, that my 
friends may visit me the oftener." 

By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would 
permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously 
pleased to call the first floor down the chimney; and knocking 

4. prospects. Fine views. 



108 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

at the door, a voice from within demanded, "Who's there*?" 
My conductor answered that it was him. But this not satis- 
fying the querist, the voice again repeated the demand; to 
which he answered louder than before; and now the door was 
opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance. 

When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with 
great ceremony, and turning to the old woman, asked where 
was her lady? "Good troth," replied she, in a peculiar dialect, 
*'she's washing your twa shirts at the next door, because they 
have taken an oath against lending out the tub any longer." — 

"My two shirts!" cried he in a tone that faltered with con- 
fusion ; "what does the idiot mean ?" 

"I ken what I mean weel enough," replied the other; "she's 
washing your twa shirts at the next door, because — " 

"Fire and fury, no more of thy stupid explanations !" cried 
he; "go and inform her we have got company. Were that 
Scotch hag," continued he, turning to me, "to be forever in 
my family, she would never learn politeness, nor forget that 
absurd poisonous accent of hers, or testify the smallest speci- 
men of breeding or high life ; and yet it is very surprising too, 
as I had her from a parliament man, a friend of mine from 
the Highlands, one of the politest men in the world ; but that's 
a secret." 

We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs' arrival, during which 
interval I had a full opportunity of surveying the chamber 
and all its furniture, which consisted of four chairs with old 
wrought bottoms, that he assured me were his wife's embroid- 
ery; a square table that had been once japanned; a cradle 
in one corner, a lumbering cabinet in the other; a broken 
shepherdess, and a mandarin^ without a head, were stuck over 
the chinmey; and round the walls several paltry unframed 
pictures which, he observed, were all his own drawing. 

"What do you think, sir, of that head in the comer, done 
in the manner of Grisoni P There's the true keeping in it ; 

5. mandarin. Grotesque Chinese fig"ure. 

6. Grisoni. A Florentine painter of the eig"hteenth century, 
popular for his portraits. 



GOLDSMITH 109 

it's my own face, and though there happens to be no likeness, 
a Countess offered me an hundred for its fellow. I refused 
her, for hang it ! that would be mechanical,^ you know." 

The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern 
and a coquette; much emaciated, but still carrying the remains 
of beauty. She made twenty apologies for being seen in such 
odious dishabille, but hoped to be excused, as she had stayed 
out all night at the gardens with the Countess, who was ex- 
cessively fond of the horns. ^^And, indeed, my dear,'^ added 
she, turning to her husband, "his lordship drank your health 
in a bumper." 

'Toor Jack!" cries he; "a dear good-natured creature, I 
know he loves me. But I hope, my dear, you have given 
orders for dinner; you need make no great preparations 
neither, there are but three of us ; something elegant and little 
will do, — a turbot, an ortolan,^ a — " 

"Or what do think, my dear," interrupts the wife, "of a 
nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with a 
little of my own sauce?" 

"The very thing!" replies he; "it will eat best with some 
smart bottled beer: but be sure to let us have the sauce his 
Grace was so fond of. I hate your immense loads of meat; 
that is country all over; extreme disgusting to those who are 
in the least acquainted with high life." 

By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my appetite 
to increase: the company of fools may at first make us smile, 
but at last never fails of rendering us melancholy ; I therefore 
pretended to recollect a prior engagement, and, after having 
shown my respect to the house, according to the fashion of the 
English, by giving the servant a piece of money at the door, I 
took my leave ; Mr. Tibbs assuring me that dinner, if I stayed, 
would be ready at least in less than two hours. 



7. meclianlcal. Like a common workman. 

8. turbot . . . ortolan. Highly fashionable delicacies; the 
one a fish, the other a bird. 



CHARLES LAMB 



[Charles Lamb was born in London, February 10, 1775, and was 
a resident of the city throug-hout his life. He was educated at 
Christ's Hospital, an endowed residence school for boys in poor 
circumstances, entering- at the same time with Coleridg^e, who 
l)ecame his lifelong" friend. On leaving- school he went to work as 
a clerk, and soon found, a place with the East India Company, 
in whose establishment he served from 1792 to 1825, when ho 
was retired on a pension of 450 pounds. Early in life Lamb 
devoted himself to the care of his sister Mary, who was subject 
to attacks of insanity, and they lived together, neither marrying, 
till his death. They collaborated in writing Tales from Shakespeare, 
and their unaristocratic drawing-room was the center of a brilliant 
literary circle. In 1820 Lamb began to contribute the Elia 
essays to the London Magazine, in which tv/o series (representing 
nearly all his best work in the essay) were eventually published 
(see the Introduction, page 12). Within a year after the publi- 
cation of the volume called Last Essays he died, in 1834.] 



A CHAPTER ON EARS^ 

I HAVE no ear. — 

Mistake me not, reader, — nor imagine that I am by nature 
destitute of those exterior twin appendages, hanging orna- 
ments and (architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the 
human capital. Better my mother had never borne me. — I am, 
I think, rather delicately than copiously provided with those 
<?onduits; and I feel no disposition to envy the mule for his 

1. This essay, like most of the series, is in good part auto- 
biographical; Lamb's indifference to music was one of his best 
Icnown eccentricities. The amusing postscript to the essay, 
defending; the personality of Elia, was written in reply to a 
passage In Leigh Hunt's journal, The Indicator, under date of 
Jan. 31, 1821: "We believe that we are taking no greater liberty 
with him [Lamb] than our motives will warrant, when we add 
that he sometimes writes in the London Magazine under the signa- 
ture of Elia." Just why Lamb dubbed his frien-d Boldero is not 
known. 

110 



LAJ\iB 111 

plenty, or the mole for her exactness, in those ingenious 
labyrinthine inlets — those indispensable side-intelligencers. 

Neither have I incurred or done anything to incur, with 
Defoe,^ that hideous disfigurement, which constrained him to 
draw upon assurance — to feel "quite unabashed," and at ease 
upon that article. I was never, I thank my stars, in the pil- 
lory; nor, if I read them aright, is it within the compass of 
my destiny that I ever should be. 

When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will under- 
stand me to mean — for music. — To say that this heart never 
melted at the concourse of sweet sounds,^ would be a foul 
self -libel, — -^^ Water parted from the sea'' never fails to move 
it strangely. So does ^^In infancy "^ But they were used to 
be sung at her harpsichord (the old-fashioned instrument in 
vogue in those days) by a gentlewoman — the gentlest, sure 
that ever merited the appellation — the sweetest — why should 

I hesitate to name Mrs. S ,^ once the blooming Fanny 

Weatherall of the Temple — who had power to thrill the soul 
of Elia, small imp as he was, even in his long coats; and to 
make him glow, tremble, and blush with a passion that not 
faintly indicated the day-spring of that absorbing sentiment, 
which v/as afterwards destined to overwhelm and subdue his 
nature quite, for Alice W — n.^ 

I even think that sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. 
But organically I am incapable of a tune. I have been prac- 
tising '^God save the King'' all my life; whistling and hum- 
, ming it over to myself in solitary corners; and am not yet 

, 2. Defoe. The reference is to a famous but inaccurate line 
in Pope's Dunciad: "Earless on hig-h stood unabashed Defee." 
Defoe was imprisoned in the pillory, in 1703, for a political 
offense, and such offenders often had their ears clipped; but he 
did not, 

3. coucoTirse of sweet soiuids. A Shakespearean phrase {Mer-' 
chant of Venice^ V, i), save that the first word should be "concord." 

4. Water parted from tlie sea ... In Infancy. Song's by Dr. 
Arne, which Lamb heard in Artaxerxes, the first play he ever 
attended. 

5. Mrs. S. Lamb noted that the full name was Spinkes. 

6. Alice W n. See not on page 124, under the essay on 

Dream Children. 



112 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

arrived, they tell me, within many quavers^ of it. Yet hath 
the loyalty of Elia never been impeached. 

I am not without suspicion that I have an undeveloped 
faculty of music within me. For thrumming, in my wild way, 
on my friend A.'s^ piano, the other morning, while he was 
engaged in an adjoining parlor, — on his return he was pleased 
to say he thought it could not he the maid! On his first sur- 
prise at hearing the keys touched in somewhat an airy and 
masterful way, not dreaming of me, his suspicions had lighted 
on Jenny. But a grace, snatched from a superior refinement, 
soon convinced him that some being — technically perhaps de- 
ficient, but higher informed from a principle common to all the 
fine arts — ^had swayed the keys to a mood which Jenny, with 
all her (less cultivated) enthusiasm, could never have elicited 
from them. I mention this as a proof of my friend's penetra- 
tion, and not with any view of disparaging Jenny. 

Scientifically I could never be made to understand (yet I 
have taken some pains) what a note in music is; or how one 
note should differ from another. Much less in voices can I 
distinguish a soprano from a tenor. Only sometimes the 
thorough-bass I contrive to guess at, from its being super- 
eminently harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, however, for my 
misapplication of the simplest terms of that which I disclaim. 
While I profess my ignorance, I scarce know what to say I am 
ignorant of. I hate, perhaps, by misnomers. Sostenuto and 
adagio stand in the like relation of obscurity to me; and Sol, 
Fa, Mi, Be, is as conjuring^ as Baralipton.^^ 

It is hard to stand alone in an age like this (constituted to 
the quick and critical perception of all harmonious combina- 
tions, I verily believe, beyond all preceding ages, since Jubal^^ 

7. quavers. Notes (strictly, eighth-notes). 

8. my friend A. Doubtless Lamb's friend William Ayrton 
(1777-1858), a well known musical critic. 

9. corjuringr. Mysterious. 

10. Earalipton. The symbolic name for one of the figures of 
the syllog-ism, in logic. 

11. JubaL The reputed founder of the art of music; see Genesis 
4:21. 



LAMB 113 

I stumbled upon the gamut^^)^ to remain as it were singly un- 
impressible to the magic influences of an art which is said to 
have such an especial stroke at soothing, elevating, and refining 

! the passions. — Yet rather than break the candid current of my 
confessions, I must avow to you that I have received a great 
deal more pain than pleasure from this so cried-up faculty. 
I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter's 

I hammer, in a warm summer noon, will fret me into more than 
midsummer madness.^^ But those unconnected, unset sounds 
are nothing to the measured malice of music. The ear is pas- 
sive to those single strokes; willingly enduring stripes, while 
it hath no task to con. To music it cannot be passive. It will 
strive — mine at least will — spite of its inaptitude, to thrid^* 
the maze; like an unskilled eye painfully poring upon hiero- 
glyphics. I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for sheer 
pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the 

: noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace myself with 
sounds which I was not obliged to follow, and get rid of the 
distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention! I 
take refuge in the unpretending assemblage of honest common- 

j life sounds; — and the purgatory of the Enraged Musician^^ 
becomes my paradise. 

I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of the pur- 
poses of the cheerful playhouse) watching the faces of the 

I auditory in the pit (what a contrast to Hogarth's Laughiug 

, Audience !)^^ immovable, or affecting some faint emotion, — 
till (as some have said that our occupations in the next world 
will be but a shadow of what delighted us in this) I have 
imagined myself in some cold theater in Hades, where some 

12. granmt. Musical scale. 
, 13. midsummer m.adiiess. A Shakespearean phrase {Twelfth 
' Night, III, iv). 

14. thrid. Thread, i. e., find one's way through. 

15. Enragfed Musician. A well known picture by Hogarth, in 
which a musician is seen at a window frantically holding his 
head from distraction at the noises in the street. 

16. Ziaug'hizL^ Audience. Another familiar sketch, representing 
a section of a theatrical audience. 



114 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

of the forms of the earthly one should be kept up, with none 
of the enjoyment; or like that 

Party in a parlor. 

All silent, and all damned !i7 

Above all, those insufferable concertos, and pieces of music, 
as they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension. — 
Words are something; but to be exposed to an endless bat- 
tery of mere sounds ; to be long a-dying, to lie stretched upon 
a rack of roses; to keep up languor by unintermitted effort; 
to pile honey upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to an inter- 
minable tedious sweetness; to fill up sound with feeling, and 
strain ideas to keep pace with it; to gaze on empty frames, 
and be forced to make the pictures for yourself; to read a 
book all stops, and be obliged to supply the verbal matter; 
to invent extempore tragedies to answer to the vague gestures 
of an inexplicable rambling mime — these are faint shadows of 
what I have undergone from a series of the ablest-executed 
pieces of this empty instrumental music. 

I deny not that in the opening of a concert I have experi- 
enced something vastly lulling and agxeeable: — afterwards 
followeth the languor, and the oppression. Like that dis- 
appointing book in Patmos,^® or like the comings on of melan- 
choly, described by Burton,^^ doth music make her first 
insinuating approaches: — "Most pleasant it is to such as are 
melancholy given, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt 
wood and water, by some brook side, and to meditate upon 
some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect him 
most, amdbilis insania,^^ and mentis gratissimus error.^'^ A 

17. Party in a parlor, eta From a stanza in the orig-inal draft of 
Wordsworth's poem "Peter Bell"; omitted in later editions. 

18. 1}Ook tn Fatmos. See Revelation 10:10. 

19. Burton. Author of a once famous work. The Anatomy of 
Melancholy, 1621; one of the seventeenth century prose writers 
loved and Imitated by Lamb. 

20. amabills insanla* Delig-htful madness (a phrase from 
Horace). 

21. mentis firratissimns error. Most pleasing hallucination of 
the mind (ag-ain from Horace). 



LAJMB 116 

most incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go 

smiling to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, 
which they suppose, and strongly imagine, they act, or that 
they see done. — So delightsome these toys at first, they could 
I spend whole days and nights without sleep, even whole years 
in such contemplations, and fantastical meditations, which are 
ilike so m^any dreams, and will hardly be drawn from them— 
winding and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and 
still pleasing their humors, until at last the scene turns upon 
I A SUDDEN, and they being now habitated to such meditations 
and solitary places, can endure no company, can think of 
nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, sus- 
picion, suhrusticus pudor/^^ discontent, cares, and weariness 
of life, surprise them on a sudden, and they can think of 
nothing else: continually suspecting, no sooner are their eyes 
I open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth upon 
I them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object 
to their minds; which now, by no means, no labor, no per- 
suasions, they can avoid, they cannot be rid of, they cannot 
resist/^ 

Something like this ^*^scene-turning^^ I have experienced at 
the evening parties, at the house of my good Catholic friend 

Nov ;2^ who, by the aid of a capital organ, himself tbe 

;most finished of players, converts his dravrlng-room into a 
j chapel, his week-days into Sundays, and these latter into minor 
I heavens.* 

When my friend commences upon one of those solemn 

.anthems, which peradventure struck upon my heedless ear, 

jtambling in the side aisles of the dim Abbey, some five-and- 

I thirty years since, waking a new sense, and putting a soul of 

■>ld religion into my young apprehension — (whether it be that 

22. BUbruBticiiB ptidor. Rustic bashfulness; a phrase of Cicero's. 

23. Nov . Vincent Novello, a well-known organist and 

: cm poser. 

•I have been there, and still would g-o; 
'Tis like a little heaven below. — Dr. Watts. 



116 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

in which the psalmist, weary of the persecutions of bad men, 
wisheth to himself dove's wings,^^ or that other, which with a 
like measure of sobriety and pathos, inquireth by what means 
the young man shall best cleanse his mind^^) — a holy calm 
pervadeth me. — I am for the time 

rapt above earth, 
And possess joys not promised at my birth.28 

But when this master of the spell, not content to have 
laid a soul prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict more 
bliss than lies in her capacity to receive, — ^impatient to over- 
come her '^earthly" with his ^^heaveniy/'^^ — still pouring in, 
for protracted hours, fresh waves and fresh from the sea of 
sound, or from that inexhausted German ocean, above w^hich, 
in triumphant progress, dolphin-seated, ride those Arions^® 
Haydn and Mozart, with their attendant tritons Bach, Beeth- 
oven, and a countless tribe, whom to attempt to reckon up 
would but plunge me again in the deeps, — I stagger under 
the weight of harmony, reeling to and fro at my wit's end; — 
clouds, as of frankincense, oppress me— priests, altars, censers, 
dazzle before me — the genius of his religion hath me in her 
toils — a shadowy triple tiara^^ invests the brow of my friend, 
late so naked, so ingenuous — ^he is Pope, — and by him sits, 
like as in the anomaly of dreams, a she-Pope too, — tri-coro- 
neted like himself! — ^I am converted, and yet a Protestant; — 
at once malleus hereticorum,^^ and myself grand heresiarch :^^ 

24. dove's wing's. Psalm 55:6. 

25. yoTing man . . . cleanse Ms mind. Psalm 119:9. 

26. rapt albove eartli, etc. Adapted from an unknown poet 
quoted by Izaak Walton in The Complete Angler. 

27. eartMy . . . heavenly. See i Corinthians 15:48. 

28. Arlons. Arion, an early Greek poet, according- to leg-end 
charmed the dolphins and tritons of the sea so that they crowded 
about the vessel on which he traveled, and he rode to land on the 
back of one of them. 

29. triple tiara. The crown of the Pope of Rome. 

30. mallerzs hereticorum. Hammer of heretics; the Latin title 
of a work by Johann Faber (1478-1541), a Catholic opponent of 
Luther. 

31. liereasiarcli. Arch -heretic. 



LAMB 117 

j or three heresies center in my person : I am Marcion, Ebion, 
and Cerinthus^^ — Q^g and Magog^^ — what not? — till the com- 
ing in of the friendly supper-tray dissipates the figment, and a 
draught of true Lutheran beer^^ (in which chiefly my friend 
shows himself no bigot) at once reconciles me to the ration- 

ialities of a purer faith, and restores to me the genuine 
unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-countenanced host and 

I hostess. 

P. S. — A writer, whose real name it seems is B older o, but 
I who has been entertaining the town for the last twelve months 
with some very pleasant lucubrations under the assumed signa- 
ture of Leigh Hunt* in his "Indicator" of the 31st January 
last has thought fit to insinuate that I, Elia, do not write the 
I little sketches which bear my signature in this magazine, but 
*|that the true author of them is a Mr. Lr— b. Observe the 
I critical period at which he has chosen to impute the calumny ! — 
Ion the very eve of the publication of our last number, — 
affording no scope for explanation for a full month; during 
which time I must lie writhing and tossing under the cruel 
imputation of nonentity. Good heavens! that a plain man 

must not be allowed to he 

They cail this an age of personality; but surely this spirit 
of anti-personality (if I may so express it) is something 
worse. 

Take away my moral reputation, — I may live to discredit 
that calumny; injure my literary fame — I may write that up 



32. Marcion, etc. Famous heretics of the early Christian era. 

33. Gog and Magrog-. See Revelation 20:8-9. 

34. true Iiutheran beer. Lucas (in the Works of Charles and 
Mary Lamb) relates this story: "Once at a musical party at 
Leig-h Hunt's, being oppressed with what to him was nothing 
better than a prolonged noise . . . [Lamb] said, 'If one only 
had a pot of porter, one might get through this.' It was pro- 
cured for him, and he weathered the Mozartian storm." 

♦Clearly a fictitious appellation; for, if we admit the latter of 
these names to be in a manner English, what is Leigh f Christian 
.nomenclature knows no such. [Lamb's note.] 



118 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

again; but, when a gentleman is robbed of his identity, where 
is he? 

Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and 
perishing trifle at the best; but here is an assassin who aims 
at our very essence ; who not only forbids us to be any longer, 
but to have been at all. Let our ancestors look to it. 

Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes 
Street, Cavendish Square, where we saw the light six-and- 
forty years ago, nothing? Were our progenitors from stately 
Genoa, where we flourished four centuries back, before the 
barbarous name of Boldero was known to a European mouth, 
nothing? Was the goodly scion of our name, transplanted 
into England in the reign of the seventh Henry, nothing? 
Are the archives of the steely ard,^^ in succeeding reigns (if 
haply they survive the fury of our envious enemies), showing 
that we flourished in prime repute, as merchants, down to the 
period of the Commonwealth, nothing? 

Why, then the world, and all that's in't, is nothing; 
The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing.36 

I am ashamed that this trifling: writer should have power 
to move me so. 

MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE^ 

Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long 
year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the 
period of memory. We house together, old bachelor nrd 
maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable con^- 
fort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find myself in no sort 
of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash 

35. steelyard. The ancient London seat of the warehouses of a 
leading- merchants' company. 

36. Wliy, tlien, etc. From Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, 1, li. 
1. This essay is of special interest for the opening character- 
sketch of Mary Lamb, under the guise of Elia's cousin Bridget. 
The other names (Bruton, Gladman, Field) are real ones, and . 
the Mackery End farmhouse was the home of Lamb's grand- 
mother's sister, Mrs. Gladman. 



LAMB 119 

king's offspring,^ to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty 
well in our tastes and habits — yet so, as ^Vith a difference."^ 
We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings — as 
it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are rather 
understood, than expressed; and once, upon my dissembling a 
tone in my voice more kind than ordinary, my cousin burst 
into tears, and complained that I was altered. We are both 
great readers in different directions. While I am hanging over 
(for the thousandth time) some passage in old Burton,^ or 
one of his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in soma 
modern tale, or adventure, whereof our common reading-table 
is daily fed with assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teases 
me. I have little concern in the progress of events. She 
must have a story — well, ill, or indifferently told — so there be 
life stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil accidents. The 
fluctuations of fortune in fiction — and almost in real life — 
have ceased to interest, or operate but dully upon me. Out- 
of-the-way humors and opinions — heads with some diverting 
twist in them — the oddities of authorship please me most. 
My cousin has a native disrelish of anything that sounds odd 
\ or bizarre. Nothing goes down with her that is quaint, irregu- 
lar, or out of the road of common sympathy. She "holds 
Nature more clever.'^^ . I can pardon her blindness to the 
beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici;^ but she must 
apologize to me for certain disrespectful insinuations which 
she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intel- 
lectuals of a dear favorite of mine, of the last century, but 
one — the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again some- 



2. rash kingr's offsprings. Jephthah's daug-hter; see Judges 11:38. 

3. with a difference. A Shakespearean phrase (Hamlet IV, v). 

4. Burton. See note on pag-e 114 above. 

5. holds Watiire more clever. Counts it more clever to be 
natural. The phrase is from a poem by John Gay, "Epitaph of 
By-V^ords." 

6. Eeligio Medici. By Sir Thomas Browne, another of the 
quaint seventeenth century authors to whom Lamb was devoted. 



120 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

what fantastical and original-brained, generous Margaret 
Newcastle J 

It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I 
could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, 
free-thinkers — leaders and disciples of novel philosophies and 
systems; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, their 
opinions. That which was good and venerable to her when 
a child retains its authority over her mind still. She never 
juggles or plays tricks with her understanding. 

We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and 
I have observed the result of our disputes to be almost uni- 
formly this — that in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, 
it turns out that I was in the right, and my cousin in the 
wrong. But where we have differed upon moral points, upon 
something proper to be done, or let alone, whatever heat of 
opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I set out with, I am 
sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way 
of thinking. 

I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a 
gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her 
faults. She hath an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) 
of reading in company: at which times she will answer yes 
or no to a question, without fully understanding its purport — 
which is provoking, and derogatory in the highest degree to 
the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presence 
of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will 
sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the pur- 
pose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to 
it greatly ; but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience,^ 



7. Marg'aret Newcastle. The Duchess of Newcastle (died 1673), 
who wrote a celebrated memoir of her husband. In his essay 
called "Detached Thoug-hts on Books and Reading" Lamb said of 
this Life of the Duke of Newcastle that "no casket is rich enoug-h, 
no casing sufficiently durable, to honor and keep safe such a 
jewel." 

8. stuff of the conscience. A Shakespearean phrase (Othello, 
I, ii). 



LAMB 121 

she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less season- 
' ably. 

Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she 
happily missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth 
by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by 
accident or design, into a spacious closet^ of good old English 
reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed 
at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I 
twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this fash- 
ion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not 
be diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes 
(if the worst come to the worst) most incomparable old 
maids. 

In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but 
in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not 
call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters 
worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always 
divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions of life she 
is sure always to treble your satisfaction. She is excellent 
to be at play with, or upon a visit; but best, when she goes 
a journey with you. 

We made an excursion together a few summers since, into 
Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our less- 
known relations in that fine corn country. 

The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel 
End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps 
of Hertfordshire; a farm-house, — delightfully situated within 
a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember 
having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a 
child under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older 
than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw 
into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might 

9. a spacious closet. This was the library of Samuel Salt, a 
lawyer, from whom the Lamb family rented chambers in the 
grounds of the Temple, the father and mother of Charles and 
Mary acting as his secretary and housekeeper. 



122 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The 
house was at that time in the occupation of a substantial 
yeoman, who had married my grandmother's sister. His name 
was Gladman. My grandmother was a Bruton, married to a 
Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still flourishing 
in that part of the county, but the Fields are almost extinct. 
More than forty years have elapsed since the visit I speak 
of; and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost 
sight of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of 
persons inherited Mackery End — kindred or strange folk — 
we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some 
day to explore. 

By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at 
Luton in our way from St. Albans, we arrivied at the spot 
of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight of the old 
farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced from my 
recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I had not 
experienced for many a year. For though I had forgotten it, 
we had never forgotten being there together, and we had 
been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memoiy 
on my part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and 1 
thought I knew the aspect of a place, which, when present, 
how unlike it was to tJiat^ which I had conjured up so many 
times instead of it! 

Still the air breathed balmily about it ; the season was in the 
**heart of June,"^^ and I could say with the poet. 

But thou, that didst appear so fair 

To fond imagination, 
Dost rival in the light of day 

Her delicate creation !ii 

Bridget's was more a waking bliss^^ than mine, for she easily 
remembered her old acquaintance again — some altered features, 

10. heart of Jnne. The phrase is from Ben Jonson's Epithala- 
mion written for the marriage of Lady Frances Stuart. 

11. But tliou, etc. From Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited." 

12. waking" hliss. The phrase is from Milton's Comus. 



LAMB 123 

of course, a little grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready 
to disbelieve for joy; but the scene soon reconfirmed itself 
in her affections — and she traversed every outpost of the old 
mansion, to the wood-house, the orchard, the place where the 
pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were alike flown), 
with a breathless impatience of recognition, which was more 
pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. 
But Bridget in some things is behind her years. 

The only thing left was to get into the house — and that 
was a difficulty Avhich to me singly would have been insur- 
mountable: for I am terribly shy in making myself known to 
strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, stronger than 
scruple, winged my cousin in without me; but she soon 
returned with a creature that might have sat to a sculptor 
for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the Glad- 
mans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress 
of the old mansion. A comely brood are the Brutons. Six 
of them, females, were noted as the handsomest young women 
in the county. But this adopted Bruton, in my mind, was 
better than they all — ^more comely. She was born too late 
to have remembered me. She just recollected in early life to 
have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out to her, climbing 
a stile. But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, was 
enough. Those slender ties, that prove slight as gossamer in 
the rending atmosphere of a metropolis, bind faster, as we 
found it, in hearty, homely, loving Hertfordshire. In five 
minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted as if we had been 
born and bred up together; were familiar, even to the callin*:^ 
each other by our Christian names. So Christians should 
call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her — it was 
like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins.^^ There was a 
grace and dignity, an amplitude of form and stature, answer- 
ing to her mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have 
shined in a palace — or so we thought it. We were made wel- 

13. «criptural cousins. Mary and Elizabeth; see Luke 1:39-40. 



124 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

come by husband and wife equally — ^we, and our friend that 
was with us. — I had almost forgotten him — but B. F.^* will 
not so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read 
this on the far-distant shores where the Kangaroo haunts. 
The fatted calf was made ready, or rather was already so, 
as if in anticipation of our coming; and, after an appropriate 
glass of native wine, never let me forget with what honest 
pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to Wheathamp- 
stead, to introduce us (as some new-found rarity) to her 
mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed know something 
more of us, at a time when she almost knew nothing. — With 
what corresponding kindness we were received by them also — 
how Bridget's memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed into 
a thousand half -obliterated recollections of things and persons, 
to my utter astonishment, and her own — and to the astound- 
ment of B. F. who sat by, almost the only thing that was not 
a cousin there, — old effaced images of more than half -forgotten 
names and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as 
words written in lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly 
warmth, — when I forget all this, then may my country cousins 
forget me; and Bridget no more remember that in the days 
of weakling infancy I was her tender charge — as I have been 
her care in foolish manhood since — in those pretty pastoral 
walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire. 

DREAM-CHILDREN: A REYERIEi 

Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when 
they were children: to stretch their imagination to the con- 

14. B. P. Barron Field, a friend of the Lambs, who at this 
time was living in Australia. 

1. This essay, perhaps the finest of I>amb*s as a work of art, 
Is an odd blend of autobiography and fiction. It may have been 
prompted by the recent death of the writer's brother John, 
sketched here as the children's "uncle John." The "great house 
in Norfolk" is Blakesware, Hertfordshire, where Lamb's grand- 
mother, Mary Field, was housekeeper. "Alice W n" may be 

somewhat vaguely identified as Ann Simmons, a girl to whom 
Lamb had been devoted for a time in his youth, and who had 
actually married a merchant named Bartrum. 



LAMB 125 

1 ception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they 
, never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about 
me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother 
Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times 
bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had 
been the scene — so at least it was generally believed in that 
part of the country — of the tragic incidents which they had 
lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children 
in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the childreii 
I and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in 
' wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole 
story down to the Robin Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person 
j pulled it down to set up a marble one of modem invention in 
' its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of 
her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. 
' Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their 
great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by 
everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this 
! great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some 
I respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) com- 
mitted to her by its owner, who preferred living in a newer 
and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased some- 
where in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a 
manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of 
the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards 
came to decay,^ and was nearly pulled down, and all its old 
ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other 
house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if 
some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen 
lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt 
drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "that 
would be foolish, indeed.'' And then I told how, when she 
came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all 

2. came to decay. The house was pulled down in 1822. The 
"other house" was Gilston, the principal seat of the Plumer 
family, some miles distant. 



126 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighborhood 
for many miles around, to show their respect for her memory, 
because she had been such a good and religious woman; so 
good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and 
a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice 
spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful 
person their great-grandmother Field once was, and how in 
her youth she was esteemed the best dancer — here little Alice's 
little right foot played an involuntary movement, till upon 
my looking grave, it desisted — the best dancer, I was saying, 
in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and 
bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good 
spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, 
because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she 
used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone 
house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants 
was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great 
staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocents 
would do her no harm"; and how frightened I used to be, 
though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because 
I was never half so good or religious as she — and yet I never 
saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and 
tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to 
all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the 
holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by 
myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve C^Esars, 
that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads 
would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with 
them; how I could never be tired with roaming about that 
huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out 
hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with 
the gilding almost rubbed out — sometimes in the spacious old- 
fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when 
now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me — and 
how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without 



LAMB 127 

my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden 

fruit, unless now and then, — and because I had more pleasure 

in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew-trees, 

or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples 

which were good for nothing but to look at — or in lying about 

upon the fresh grass, with all the fine garden smells around 

me — or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy 

! myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in 

that grateful warmth — or in watching the dace that darted to 

jand fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with 

here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the 

water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent 

jfriskings, — I had more pleasure in these busy -idle diversions 

'than in all the sweet flavors of peaches, nectarines, oranges^ 

and such like common baits of children. Here John slyly 

deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes which, not 

^unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, 

and both seemed willing to relinquish theiu for the present as 

! irrelevant. Then in somewhat a more heightened tone, I 

I told how, though their great-grandmother Field loved all her 

grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to 

love their uncle, John L — , because he was so handsome and 

spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead 

of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would 

mount the most mettlesome horse he. could get, when but an 

imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half 

I over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when 

1 there were any out — and yet he loved the old great house and 

fardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up 

ivithin their boundaries — and how their uncle grew up to 

qaan's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration 

jDf everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most 

I especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when 

I was a lame-footed boy — for he was a good bit older than 

aie — many a mile when I could not walk for pain; — and how 



128 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

in after-life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always 
(I fear) make allowance enough for him when he was impa- 
tient, and in> pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate 
he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how when 
he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as 
if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is 
betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death as I thought 
pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted 
me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, 
and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed 
him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had 
loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, 
and wished him to be alive again, to be quarreling with him 
(for we quarreled sometimes), rather than not have him again, 
and was as uneasy without him, as he, their poor uncle, must 
have been when the doctor took off his limb. Here the children 
fell a-crying, and asked if their little mourning which they 
had on was not for uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed 
me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories 
about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how for seven 
long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet per- 
sisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W ^n; and, as much 

as children could understand, I explained to them what coy- 
ness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens — ^when sud- 
denly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out 
at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I 
became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or 
whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both 
the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and 
still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features 
were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, 
strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: ^^We arel 
not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The 
children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less 
than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might havej 



LAMB 129 

been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe^ millions 
of ages, before we have existence, and a name" and imme- 
diately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor 
arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget 
unchanged by my side — but John L. (or James Elia) was gone 
for ever. 

THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 

I LIKE to meet a sweep — understand me — ^not a grown 
sweeper — old chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive — • 
but one of those tender novices, blooming through their first 
nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the 
cheek — such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, 
with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep 
of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should I pro- 
nounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating 
the sun-rise? 

I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks — poor 
blots — innocent blacknesses — 

I reverence these young Africans of our own growth — these 

almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; 

I and from their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the 

nipping air of a December morning, preach a lesson of patience 

to mankind. 

When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness 
their operation ! to see a chit no bigger than one^s self enter, 
one knew not by what process, into what seemed the fauces 
Averni^ — to pursue him in imagination, as he went sounding 
on through so many dark stifling caverns, horrid shades! — 
to shudder with the idea that "now, surely, he must be lost 
] for ever !" — -to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered 
Vdaylight — and then (0 fulness of delight) running out of 

3. ^etlie. The river of Hades, of which (according to a 
9passag-e in Verg-il's Mneid) departed spirits drink forgetfulness so 
that they may be willing to enter mortal bodies once more. 
1. fauces Averni. Jaws of Hades (a Vergilian phrase). 



130 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon 
emerge ill safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious ' 
like some flag waved over a conquered citadel! I seem to ' 
remember having been told that a bad sweep was once left in ' 
a stack with his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. 
It was an awful spectacle certainly; not much unlike the old 
stage direction in Macbeth ^^ where the ^^ Apparition of a child 
crowned with a tree in his hand rises.'' 

Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early ' 
rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to give 
him twopence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper 
troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed^ heels (no 
unusual accompaniment) be superadded, the demand on thy 
humanity will surely rise to a tester."* 

There is a composition, the groundwork of which I have i 
understood to be the sweet wood yclept^ sassafras. This 
w^ood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an ' 
infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy 
beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate may 
relish it ; for myself, with every deference to the judicious I 
Mr. Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop 
(the only one he avers in London) for the vending of this 
^Svholesome and pleasant beverage,'^ on the south side of Fleet f 
Street, as thou approachest Bridge Street — the only Salopian 
house, ^ — I have never yet adventured to dip my own particular 
lip in a basin of his commended ingredients — cautious premoni- 
tion to the olfactories constantly whispering to me that my 
stomach must infallibly, with all due courtesy, decline it. Yet 
I have seen palates, otherwise not uninstructed in dietetical 
elegances, sup it up with avidity. 



2. stagre direction in Macbetli. Act IV, scene 1. 

3. kibed. Chapped or swollen with chilblains. 

4. tester. Sixpence. 

5. yclept. Called 

6. Salopian hoiise. A place for the sale of saloop, sl drink sim- 
ilar to sassafras tea. 



LAMB . 131 

I know not by what particular conformation of the organ 
t happens, but I have always found that this composition 
s surprisingly gratifying to the palate of a young chimney- 
weeper — ^whether the oily particles (sassafras is slightly 
)leaginous) do attenuate and soften the fuliginous concre- 
ions/ which are sometimes found (in dissections) to adhere 
o the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practitioners; or 
v^hether Nature, sensible that she had mingled too much of 
)itter wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow 
j>ut of the earth her sassafras for a sweet lenitive — but so it 
^s, that no possible taste or odor to the senses of a young 
himney-sweeper can convey a delicate excitement comparable 
o this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their 
)lack heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense, if 
5)0ssible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic animals 
—cats — when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. 
J There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy 
an inculcate. 

Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that 
ds is the only Salopian house; yet be it known to thee, reader 
j— if thou art one who keepest what is called good hours, thou 
irt happily ignorant of the fact — he hath a race of industrious 
imitators, who from stalls, and under open sky, dispense the 
J;ame savory mess to humbler customers, at the dead time of 
J he dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reeling home 
J'rom his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan leaving 
-jiis bed to resume the premature labors of the day, jostle, not 
mfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for 
he honors of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer,. 
)etween the expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, 
;he kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their least satis- 
■factory odors. The rake who wisheth to dissipate his o'er- 
light vapors in more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial f ume^ 

7. fulisrinans concretions. Deposits of soot. Lamb is imitat- 
r\E the sonorous Latinized style of his favorite seventeenth. 
.entury authors. 



132 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

as he passeth; but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the 
fragrant breakfast. ' 

This is Saloop — the precocious herb-woman's darling — the 
delight of the early gardener, who transports his smoking 
cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith to Covent 
Garden's^ famed piazzas — the delight, and, oh I fear, too 
often the eiivy, of the unpennied sweep. Him shouldst thou 
haply encounter, mth his dim visage pendent over the grateful 
steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee 
but three halfpennies) and a slice of delicate bread and 
butter (an added halfpenny) ; so may thy culinary jBres^ 
eased of the overcharged secretions from thy worse-placed 
hospitalities, curl up a lighter volume to the welkin — so may 
the descending soot never taint thy costly well-ingredienced 
soups — nor the odious cry, quick-reaching from street to street, 
of the fired chimney ^ invite the rattling engines from ten 
adjacent parishes to disturb for a casual scintillation thy 
peace and pocket! 

I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; 
the jeers and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph 
they display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a 
gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young 
sweep with something m.ore than forgiveness. In the last 
winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with my accustomed 
precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide 
brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with 
pain and shame enough — yet outwardly trying to face it down, 
as if nothing had happened — when the roguish grin of one 
of these young wits encountered me. There he stood, pointing 
me out with his dusky finger to the mob, and to a poor woman 
(I suppose his mother) in particular, till the tears for the 
exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked themselves 

8. Hammersiziitli . . . Covent Garden. Hammersmith was a 
district at the west of London, famed for its market g-ardens. 
The piazzas of Covent Garden were (and still are) the chief 
market-place of the city. 



i 



LAMB 133 



out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a 
previous weeping, and soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all 
with such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth — — 
but Hogarth has got him already (how could he miss him?) 

in "The March to Finchley,"^ grinning at the pie-man 

there he stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, as if 
the jest was to last for ever — ^with such a maximum of glee, 
and minimum of mischief, in his mirth — for the grin of a 
genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it — that I could 
have been content, if the honor of a gentleman might endure 
it, to have remained his butt and his mockery till midnight. 
I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are 
called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies 
must pardon me) is a casket presumably holding such jewels; 
but, methinks, they should take leave to "air'' them^® as 
frugally as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentleman, who 
show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must I confess 
that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to 
ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes 
me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable 
piece of foppery. It is, as when 

A sable cloud 
Turns forth her silver lining on the night.n 

It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a badge 
of better days; a hint of nobility: — and, doubtless, under 
the obscuring darkness and double night of their forlorn 
disguisement, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle condi- 
tions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedigree. The 
premature apprenticements of these tender victims give but 

9. Tlie March to Pinchley. One of Hog^arth's studies of eigh- 
teenth century life, showing a village street overrun with sol- 
diers making- their way to Finchley, where a military camp was 
established. One soldier is emptying the contents of a milkmaid's 
pail into his hat, to the delight of the little sweep and the pie-man 
just behind him. 

10. "air" tlienx. An allusion to a phrase in Shakespeare's Cym^ 
beline, II, iv: "I beg" hut leave to air this jewel." 

11. A sable cloud, etc. From Milton's Comus. 



134 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine and almost 
infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, 
so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be 
accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many 
noble Rachels mourning^ ^ for their children, even in our days, 
countenance the fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow 
a lamentable verity, and the recovery of the young Montagu^* 
he but a solitary instance of good fortune, out of many irre- 
parable and hopeless defiUations,^^ 

In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years 
since — under a ducal canopy — (that seat of the Howards is an 
object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which 
the late Duke was especially a connoisseur) — encircled with 
curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets inwoven — 
folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap 
where Venus lulled Ascanius^^ — ^was discovered by chance, 
after all methods of search had failed, at noonday, fast asleep, 
a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow 
confounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly 
chimneys, by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this 
magnificent chamber; and, tired with his tedious explorations, 
was unable to resist the delicious invitement to repose, which 
lie there saw exhibited; so, creeping between the sheets very 
quietly, laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a 
young Howard. 

Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle. — 
Eut I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what 
I have just hinted at in this story. A high instinct was at 
work in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable that a poor 



12. Baclielft monxnliig'. See Matthew 2:17-1S. 

13. yotmg- Montasru. Edward V^ortley Montag-u (1713-1776), a 
^well known character, son of Lady Mary Montag-u; he ran away 
from school and (among- other adventures) was for a time a 
chimney-sweep. 

14. defiliations. Losses of sons. 

15. Ascanins. The young" son of -^^neas; the reference is to a 
scene in the first book of the ^neid. 



I 



LAMB 135 

child of that description, with whatever weariness he might 
be visited, would have ventured, under such a penalty as he 
would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a Duke's 
bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, when 
the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far 
above his pretensions — is this probable, I would ask, if the 
great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been 

I manifested within him, prompting to the adventure? Doubt- 
less this young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me that 

1 he must be) was allured by some memory, not amounting to 

' full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, when he was 
used to be lapt by his mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets 

j as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back 

I as into his proper ineunahula^^ and resting place. By no other 
theory, than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I 
may call it), can I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, 

I upon any other system, so indecorous, in this tender, but 

, unseasonable, sleeper. 

I My pleasant friend Jem White^"^ was so impressed with a 
belief of metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that 
in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor 
changelings, he instituted an annual feast of chimney-sweepers, 
at which it was his pleasure to officiate as host and waiter. 
It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield, upon the yearly 
return of the fair of St. Bartholomew.^^ Cards were issued 
a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the metrop- 
olis, confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now and 
then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good- 
naturedly winked at; but our main body were infantry. One 
unfortunate wight, indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, 

16. Incunabula. Cradle (orig-inally swaddling'-clothea). 

17. Jem White. James White (1775-1820) was a school-fellow 
of Lamb's at Christ's Hospital; at this time he was London 
ag^ent of provincial newspapers. 

18. fair of St. Bartliolomew. A famous fair formerly held in 
Smithfield (an open district of London) on September 3; it was 
abolished in 1855. 



136 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

had intruded himself into our party, but by tokens was provi- 
dentially discovered in time to be no chimney-sweeper (all is 
not soot which looks so), was quoited out of the presence with 
universal indignation, as not having on the wedding garment, ^^ 
but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The place 
chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north 
side of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the 
agreeable hubbub of that vanity, but remote enough not to be 
obvious to the interruption of every gaping spectator in it. 
The guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary 
parlors three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as 
substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with 
her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues 
dilated at the savor. James White, as head waiter, had charge 
of the first table; and myself, with our trusty companion 
Bigod,^^ ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was 
clamoring and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at 
the first table — for Rochester^i in his maddest days could not 
have done the humors of the scene with more spirit than my 
friend. After some general expression of thanks for the honor 
the company had done him, his inaugural ceremony was to 
clasp the greasy waist of old dame Ursula (the fattest of the 
three), that stood frying and fretting, half -blessing, half- 
cursing, "the gentleman," and imprint upon her chaste lips a 
tender salute, w^hereat the universal host^^ would set up a shout 
that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled 
the night with their brightness. it was a pleasure to see the 
sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more unctu- 

19. weddingr g^arment. See Matthew 22:11-13. 

20.. Bi^rod. The name stands for John Fenwick, a journalist 
friend of Lamb's. 

21. Bocliester. The second Earl of Rochester, a notorious 
roystering nobleman of the court of Charles the Second. 

22. universal liost. An allusion to Milton's account of the 
army of Satan; 

At which the universal host up-sent 
A shout that tore Hell's concave. 

(Paradise Lost, 1, 541-2.) 
"Concave" is arched roof. 



LAMB 137 

ous sayings — how he would fit the tit-bits to the puny mouths, 
reserving the lengthier links for the seniors — ^how he would 
intercept a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado, 
declaring it "must to the pan again to be browned, for it was 
not fit for a gentleman's eating'^ — how he would recommend 
this slice of white bread, or that piece of kissing-crust,^^ to a 
tender juvenile, advising them all to have a care of cracking 
their teeth, which were their best patrimony, — how genteelly 
he would deal about the small ale, as if it were wine, naming 
the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, he should lose 
their custom; with a special recommendation to wipe the lips 
before drinking. Then we had our toasts — "The King," — the 
"Cloth,"24 — which, whether they understood or not, was equally 
diverting and flattering; — and for a crowning sentiment, which 
never failed, "May the Brush supersede the Laurel/' All 
these, and fifty other fancies, which were rather felt than 
comprehended by his guests, would he utter, standing upon 
tables, and prefacing every sentiment with a "Gentlemen, give 
me leave to propose so and so,'' which was a prodigious com- 
fort to those young orphans; and every now and then stuffing 
into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these 
occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, 
which pleased them mightily, and was the savoriest part, you 
may believe, of the entertainment. 

Golden lads and lasses must. 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.25 

James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have 
long ceased. He carried away with him half the fun of the 
world when he died — of my world at least. His old clients 
look for him among the pens; and, missing him, reproach the 
altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of Smithfield 
departed forever. 

23. Mssin^-cmst. An overhanging- edge of the upper crust of 
the loaf, that touches another loaf while baking. 

24. tlio "Clotli." The clergy. 

25. Golden lads, etc. From the dirge in Shakespeare's Cymbeline, 
IV, ii. 



138 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG^ 

Mankind^ says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. 
was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first 
seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting 
it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this 
day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great 
Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, 
where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho- 
fang, literally the Cook's holiday. The manuscript goes on 
to say that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I 
take to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in 
the manner following. The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out 
into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect 
mast^ for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son 
Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with 
fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks 
escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread 
the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till 
it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry 
antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what 
was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed 
pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have 
been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest 
periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consterna- 
tion, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tene- 
ment, which his father and he could easily build up again 
with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, 
at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking 
what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over 
the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an 



1. The story told in this essay has been found to be rather 
widely scattered in early literature, but Lamb seems to have 
obtained it, as he says, from a Chinese tale communicated to him 
by his friend Thomas Manning, a traveler and Orientalist. 

2. mast. Nuts and acorns. 



LAMB 139 

odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before 
experienced. What could it proceed from? — ^not from the 
burnt cottage — ^he had smelt that smell before — indeed this 
was by no means the first accident of the kind which had 
occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire- 
brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, 
weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time 
overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He 
next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of 
life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied 
them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs 
of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for 
the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before 
him no man had known it) he tasted — crackling! Again he 
felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much 
now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth 
at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the 
pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, 
surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to 
tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh 
next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly 
fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed 
with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began 
to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as 
hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they 
had been flies. The tickling pleasure which he experienced 
in his lower regions had rendered him quite callous to any 
inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His 
father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till 
he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more 
sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue 
ensued : 

"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? 
Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses 
with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must 



140 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

be eating fire, and I know not what — ^what have you got there, 
I sayf 

"0 father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the 
burnt pig eats." 

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, 
and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that 
should eat burnt pig. 

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morn- 
ing, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, 
thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, 
still shouting out, ^^Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only 
taste — Lord," — with such-like barbarous ejaculations, cram- 
ming all the while as if he would choke. 

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abom- 
inable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to 
death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling 
scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying 
the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its 
flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretense, 
proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for 
the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son 
fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had 
despatched all that remained of the litter. 

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for 
the neighbors would certainly have stoned them for a couple 
of abominable wretches, who could think of improving upon 
the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, 
strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti's 
cottage was burnt down now more frequently than ever. 
Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would 
break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as 
the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a 
blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, 
instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent 
to him than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible 



LAMB 141 

mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their 
trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town.^ Evidence 
was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and 
verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury 
begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood 
accused, might be handed into the box. He handled it, and 
they all handled it, and burnt their fingers, as Bo-bo and his 
father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of 
them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and 
the clearest charge which judge had ever given, — to the sur- 
prise of the whole court, tovnisfolk, strangers, reporters, and 
all present — without leaving the box, or any manner of con- 
sultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of 
Not Guilty. 

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the mani- 
fest iniquity of the decision; and, when the court was dis- 
missed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could 
be had for love or money. In a few days his Lordship^s 
town house was observed to be on tire. The thing took wing, 
and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direc- 
tion. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the dis- 
tricts. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People 
built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that 
the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost 
to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, 
till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, 
like our Locke,^ who made a discovery that the flesh of 
swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked {burnt 
as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole 
house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. 
Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, 
I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes 



3. assize town. Town where a circuit court sits. 

4. our l&oclce. A seventeenth century philosopher. 



142 ESSAYS—ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most 
obvious arts, make their way among mankind. 

Without placing too implicit faith in the account above 
given, it must be agreed that if a worthy pretext for so danger- 
ous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these 
days) could be assigned in favor of any culinary object, that 
pretext and excuse might be found in roast pig. 

Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edit His, ^ I will 
maintain it to be the most delicate — princeps ohsoniorum.^ 

I speak not of your grown porkers — things between pig 
and pork — those hobbydehoys — but a young and tender suck- 
ling — under a moon old — guiltless as yet of the sty — ^with no 
original speck of the amor immunditice,'^ the hereditary failing 
of the first parent, yet manifest — ^his voice as yet not broken, 
but something between a childish treble and a grumble — the 
mild forerunner, or prceludiumy of a grunt. 

He must he roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors 
ate them seethed, or boiled — ^but what a sacrifice of the exterior 
tegument ! 

There is no flavor comparable, I will contend, to that of the 
crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, crackling, as it 
is well called — the very teeth are invited to their share of the 
pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resist- 
ance — with the adhesive oleaginous — call it not fat — but 
an indefinable sweetness growing up to it — the tender blossom- 
ing of fat — fat cropped in the bud — taken in the shoot — in 
the first innocence — the cream and quintessence of the child- 
pig's yet pure food — the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal 
manna — or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended 
and running into each other that both together make but one 
ambrosian result, or common substance. 

Behold him, while he is ^^doing" — it seemeth rather a refresh- 

6. mimdus edllbilis. World of eatables. 

6, princeps o"bsonloruin. Chief of delicacies. 

7. amor Immxuiditlae. Love of tilth. 



LAMB 143 

ing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. 
How equably he twirleth round the string! — Now he is just 
done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he 
hath wept out his pretty eyes — radiant jellies — shooting 
stars^ — 

See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth ! — 
wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness 
and indocility which too often accompany maturer swine- 
hood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, 
an obstinate, disagreeable animal — ^wallowing in all manner 
of filthy conversation® — from these sins he is happily snatched 
away — 

Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, 
Death came with timely care — lo 
his memory is odoriferous — no clown^^ curseth, while his stom- 
ach half rejecteth, the rank bacon — no coalheaver bolteth him 
in reeking sausages — ^he hath a fair sepulcher in the grateful 
stomach of the judicious epicure — and for such a tomb might 
be content to die.^^ 

He is the best of Sapors.^^ Pine-apple is great. She is 
indeed almost too transcendent^a delight, if not sinful, yet 
so like to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced person would 
do well to pause — too ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth 
and excoriateth the lips that approach her — like lovers' kisses, 
she biteth — she is a pleasure bordering on pain from the fierce- 
ness and insanity of her relish — ^but she stoppeth at the palate 
— she meddleth not with the appetite — and the coarsest hunger 
might barter her consistently for a mutton chop. 

8. sliootlnfir stari. Lamb may be alludingr to the old belief 
that shooting- stars dropped jelly-like substances upon the earth. 

9. filtliy conversation. The phrase is from 2 Peter 2:7; "con- 
versation" means manner of life. 

10. Ere sin cotild blight, etc. From Coleridgre's "Epitaph on 
an Infant." 

11. clown. Roug-h, low-born person. 

12. for such a tomb. An allusion to the closing lines of Milton's 
verses on Shakespeare: 

And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie 

That king^s for such a tomb would wish to die. 

13. Sapors. Flavors. 



144 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Pig — let me speak his praise — is no less provocative of the 
appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the 
censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and 
the weakling refuseth not his mild juices. 

Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues 
and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unraveled 
without hazard, he is — good throughout. No part of him is 
better or worse than another. He helpeth, as far as his little 
means extend, all around. He is the least envious of ban- 
quets. He is all neighbors' fare. 

I am one of those who freely and ungrudgingly impart a 
share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot 
(few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take 
as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, 
and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. "Presents," I often 
say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, 
barn-door chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"),^* capons, 
plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I 
receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue 
of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would 
not, like Lear, "give everything." I make my stand upon 
pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good 
favors, to extra-domiciliate, or send out of the house, slight- 
ingly (under pretext of friendship, or I know not what), a 
blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my 
individual palate — It argues an insensibility. 

I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. 
My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of 
a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing, 
into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking 
plum-cake, fresh from the oven. In my way to school (it 
was over London Bridge) a gray-headed old beggar saluted 
me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was a counter- 

14. tame villatic fowl. The phrase is from Milton's Samson 
Agonistes; "villatic" means farmyard. 



LAMB 145 

f eit ) . I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity of 
self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, 
I made him a present of — the whole cake ! I walked on a little, 
buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of 
self-satisfaction ; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, 
my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking 
how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give 
her good gift away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, 
and who might be a bad man for aught I knew; and then I 
thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in thinking 
that I — I myself, and not another — would eat her nice cake — 
and what should I say to her the next time I saw her — ^how 
naughty I was to part with her pretty present — and the odor 
of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the 
pleasure and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, 
and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed 
she would feel that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth 
at last — and I blamed my impertinent spirit of alms-giving, 
and out-of -place hypocrisy of goodness, and above all I wished 
never to see the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, 
old gray impostor. 

Our ancestors were niee^^ in their niethod of sacrificing these 
tender victims. We read of pigs whipped to death with some- 
thing of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete custom. 
The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be curious to 
inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what effect this 
process might have towards intenerating and dulcifying^® a 
substance naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of yoimg 
pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, 
while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom 
of the practice. It might impart a gusto — 

I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young 



15. nice. Discriminating. 

16. inteneratin^f and dnlcifylnfir. Making tender and sweet; 
compare the note on "fuliginous concretions," page 131 above. 



146 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

students, when I was at St. Omer's,^^ and maintained with 
much learning and pleasantry on both sides, "Whether, sup- 
posing that the flavor of a pig who obtained his death by whip- 
ping (per flagellationem extremam)'^^ superadded a pleasure 
upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible 
suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in 
using that method of putting the animal to death?" I forget 
the decision. 

His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread 
crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild 
sage. But, banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole 
onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate, steep 
them in shalots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank 
and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or make them 
stronger than they are — but consider, he is a weakling — a 
flower. 

OLD CHINA! 

I HAVE an almost feminine partiality for old china. Whjen 
^ I go to see any great house, I enquire for the china-closet, and 
next for the picture gallery. I cannot defend the order of 
preference, but by saying that we have all some taste or other, 
of too ancient a date to admit of our remembering distinctly 
that it was an acquired one. I can call to mind the first play, 
and the first exhibition, that I was taken to; but I am not 
conscious of a time when china jars and saucers were intro- 
duced into my imagination. 

I had no repugnance then — why should I now have*? — to 
those little, lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques, that, under the 
notion of men and women, float about, uncircumscribed by any 

17. St, Omer's. A Jesuit colleg-e in France; here playfully men- 
tioned because of the reputation of Jesuit theologians for the 
discussion of subtle questions of morality. 

18. per flag'ellationem extremani. Lamb puts "by whipping'* 
into a Latin phrase such as the theolog-ians mig-ht have used. 

1. This essay is valued especially for its picture of the life 
of Charles and Mary Lamb during- their early days of compara- 
tive poverty. 



LAMB 147 

element, in that world before perspective— a china tea-cup. 
I like to see my old friends — ^whom distance cannot diminish — 
figuring up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on 
terra firma still — for so we must in courtesy interpret that 
speck of deeper blue which the decorous artist, to prevent 
absurdity, had made to spring up beneath their sandals. 

I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if pos- 
sible, with still more womanish expressions. 

Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to a 
lady from a salver — two miles off. See how distance seems 
to set off respect! And here the same lady, or another — for 
likeness is identity on tea-cups — is stepping into a little fairy 
boat, moored on the hither side of this calm garden river, 
with a dainty mincing foot, which in a right angle of incidence 
(as angles go in our world) must infallibly land her in the 
midst of a flowery mead — a furlong off on the other side of 
the same strange stream! 

Farther on — if far or near can be predicated of their world 
— see horses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays.^ 

Here— a cow and rabbit couchant,^ and co-extensive — so 
objects show, seen through the lucid atmosphere of fine 
Cathayo- 

I was pointing out to my cousin last evening, over our 
Hyson^ (which we are old-fashioned enough to drink unmixed 
still of an afternoon), some of these speciosa miracula^ upon a 
set of extraordinary old blue china (a recent purchase) which 
we were now for the first time using; and could not help 
remarking how favorable circumstances had been to us of late 
years, that we could afford to please the eye sometimes with 
trifles of this sort — ^when a passing sentiment seemed to over- 

2. til© liays. An old Engrlish country dance. 

3. coTicliant. An heraldic term; lying down with the head 
raised. 

4. Cathay. China. 

5. Hyson. Fragrant green tea. 

6. speciosa miracula. Shining wonders; a phrase from Horace. 



148 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

shade the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting 
these summer clouds in Bridget/ 

^^I wish the good old times would come again," she said, 
"when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean that I want 
to be poor; but there was a middle state" — so she was pleased 
to ramble on — "in which I am sure we were a great deal hap- 
pier. A purchase is but a purchase, now that you have money 
enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. 
When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, 0! how much ado I 
had to get you to consent in those times!), we were used to 
have a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for 
and against, and think what we might spare it out of, and what 
saving we could hit upon, that should be an equivalent. A 
thing was worth buying then, when we felt the money that we 
paid for it. 

"Do you remember the brown suit which you made to hang 
upon you till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew 
so thread-bare — and all because of that folio Beaumont and 
Fletcher,^ which you dragged home late at night from Barker's 
in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for 
weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, 
and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock 
of the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing 
you should be too late— and when the old bookseller with some 
grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for 
he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty 
treasures — and when you lugged it home, wishing it were 
twice as cumbersome — and when you presented it to me — 
and when we were exploring the perfectness of it {collating 
you called it) — and while I was repairing some of the loose 
leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to 
be left till daybreak — was there no pleasure in being a poor 

7. Bridg-et. Mary Lamb, of course; see the introductory note 
to "Mackery End." 

8. Beaumont and Fletcher. Elizabethan dramatists who col- 
laborated. 



LAMB 149 

manf or can those neat black clothes which you wear now, 
and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become rich 
and finical, give you half the honest vanity with which you 
flaunted it about in that overworn suit — your old corbeau^ — 
for four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to 
pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen — or 
sixteen shillings was it *? — a great affair we thought it then — 
which you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford 
to buy any book that pleases you, but I do not see that you 
ever bring me home any nice old purchases now. 

^When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out 
a less number of shillings upon that print after Lionardo,^® 
which we christened the 'Lady Blanch' ; when you looked at the 
purchase, and thought of the money — and thought of the 
money, and looked again at the picture — ^was there no pleasure 
in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do but to 
walk into Colnaghi's,^^ and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. 
Yet do you? 

"Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and 
Potter's Bar, and Waltham, when we had a holiday — holidays, 
and all other fun, are gone, now we are rich — and the little 
hand-basket in which I used to deposit our day's fare of 
savory cold lamb and salad — and how you would pry about 
at noontide for some decent house, where we might go in, 
and produce our store — only paying for the ale that you must 
call for — and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and 
whether she was likely to allow us a table-cloth — and wish for 
such another honest hostess as Izaak Walton has described 
many a one on the pleasant banks of the Lea, when he went 
a-fishing — and sometimes they would prove obliging enough, 

9. corlbeau. A dark green goods. 

10. Xkionardo. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the famous 
Italian artist. The picture here called "Lady Blanch" Is usually 
known as "Modesty and Vanity"; it is the subject of one of 
Mary Lamb's poems. 

11. ColnafiThl's. The shop of a print-seller, more properly 
styled Colnago. 



150 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon us — but we 
had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat our 
plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator^^ j^jg Trout 
Hall? Now, when we go out a day's pleasuring, which is 
seldom moreover, we ride part of the way — and go into a fine 
innf and order the best of dinners, never debating the expense 
— which, after all, never has half the relish of those chance 
country snaps, when we were at the mercy of uncertain usage 
and a precarious welcome. 

"You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in 
the pit. Do you remember where it was we used to sit, when 
we saw The Battle of Hexham, and The Surrender of Calais,^^ 
and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in The Children in the Wood^^ 
— when we squeezed out our shillings a-pieee to sit three or 
four times in a season in the one-shilling gallery — ^where you 
felt all the time that you ought not to have brought me — and 
more strongly I felt obligation to you for having brought me 
— and the pleasure was the better for a little shame — and when 
the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the 
house, or what mattered it where we were sitting, when our 
thoughts were with Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the 
Court of lUyria? You used to say that the gallery was the 
best place of all for enjoying a play socially — that the relish 
of such exhibitions must be in proportion to the infrequency 
of going — ^that the company we met there, not being in general 
readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and did 
attend, to what was going on, on the stage — because a word 
lost would have been a chasm which it was impossible for them 
to fill up. With such reflections we consoled our pride^then — 
and I appeal to you whether, as a woman, I met generally with 
less attention and accommodation than I have done since in 

12. Piscator. A character in Walton's Complete Angler, one of 
whose favorite resorts was Trout Hall, "an honest ale-house." 

13. Battle of Hexliain . . . Simrender of Calais. Plays by 
Georg-e Colman the young-er (1762-1836). 

14. Children in tlie Waod. A short play by Thomas Morton 
(1764-1838). 



LAMB 151 

more expensive situations in the house ? The getting in indeed, 
and the crowding up those inconvenient staircases, was bad 
enough, — but there was still a law of civility to woman recog- 
nized to quite as great an extent as we ever found in the other 
passages — and how a little difficulty overcome heightened the 
snug seat, and the play, afterwards ! Now we can only pay our 
money and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries 
now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then — 
but sight, and all, I think, is gone with our poverty. 

"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they 
became quite common — in the first dish of peas, while they 
were yet dear — to have them for a nice supper, a treat. What 
treat can we have* now? If we were to treat ourselves now — 
that is, to have dainties a little above our means, it would be 
selfish and wicked. It is veiy little more that we allow our- 
selves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that makes what 
I call a treat — ^when two people living together, as we have 
done, now and then indulge themselves in a cheap luxury, 
which both like; while each apologizes, and is willing to take 
both halves of the blame to his single share. I see no harm 
in people making much of themselves in that sense of the word. 
It msLj give them a hint how to make much of others. But 
now — what I mean by the word — we never do make much of 
ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the 
veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty. 

"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleas- 
ant at the end of the year to make all meet, — and much ado 
we used to have eveiy Thirty-first Night of December to 
account for our exceedings — many a long face did you make 
over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving to make it out 
how we had spent so much — or that we had not spent so much 
— or that it was impossible we should spend so much next 
year — and still we found our slender capital decreasing — but 
then, betwixt ways, and projects, and compromises of one sort 
or another, and talk of curtailing this charge, and doing with- 



152 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

out that for the future — and the hope that youth brings, and 
laughing spirits (in which you were never poor till now), we 
pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with ^lusty brimmers'^ ^ 
(as you used to quote it out of hearty cheerful Mr. Cotton, as 
you called him), we used to welcome in the 'coming guest/ 
Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year — 
no flattering promises about the new year doing better for us.'' 
Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, that 
when she gets into a rhetorical vein I am careful how I inter- 
rupt it. I could not help, however, smiling at the phantom of 
wealth which her dear imagination had conjured up out of a 
clear income of poor — hundred pounds a year. "It is true we 
were happier when we were poorer, but we 'were also younger, 
my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the excess, for 
if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not 
much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as 
we grew up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It 
strengthened and knit our compact closer. We could never 
have been what we have been to each other, if we had always 
had the sufficiency which you now complain of. The resist- 
ing power — those natural dilations of the youthful spirit, 
which circumstances cannot straighten — ^with us are long since 
passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth, a 
sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. 
We must ride, where we formerly walked: live better, and lie 
softer — and shall be wiser to do so — than we had means to 
do in those good old days you speak of. Yet could those days 
return — could you and I once more walk our thirty miles a day 
— could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, and you 
and I be young to see them — could the good old one-shilling 
gallery days return — they are dreams, my cousin, now — but 
could you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, 

15. lusty "brimmers. Pleasant cups. Mr. Cotton was a miscel- 
laneous writer of the seventeenth century; he translated the 
essays of Montaig-ne, and wrote a continuation of Walton's Angler. 
The quotations are from his poem called "The New Year." 



LAMB 153 

by our well-earpeted fire-side, sitting on this luxurious sofa — 
be once more struggling up those inconvenient staircases, 
pushed about, and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rab- 
ble of poor gallery scramblers — could I once more hear those 
anxious shrieks of yours — and the delicious Thank God, we are 
safe, which always followed when the topmost stair, conquered, 
let in the first light of the whole cheerful theater dowm beneath 
us— I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so 
deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than 

Croesus^^ had, or the great Jew R ^^ is supposed to have, to 

purchase it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese 
waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester,^^ 
over the head of that pretty insipid half-Madonnaish chit of a 
lady in that very blue summer-house." 

THE SUPERANNUATED MAN^ 

If peradventure^ Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the 
golden years of thy life — thy shining youth — in the irksome 
confinement of an office; to have thy prison days prolonged 
through middle age down to decrepitude and silver hairs, with- 
out hope of release or respite; to have lived to forget that 
there are such things as holidays, or to remember them but 
as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then only, will you 
be able to appreciate my deliverance. 

It is now six and thirty years since I took my seat at the 
desk in Mincing Lane. Melancholy was the transition at 
fourteen from the abundant playtime and the frequently inter- 
vening vacations of school days, to the eight, nine, and some- 

16. Croesus. An ancient Lydian king, famed for his wealth. 

17. the great Jew R. Nathan Rothschild^ founder of the bank- 
ing house of that name. 

18. hed-tester. Bed canopy. 

1. This essay is almost purely autobiographical, giving an 
account of Lamb's retirement from his clerkship at the India 
House, in March, 1825. He devises, however, a fictitious name for 
the firm for which he had been working so long. "Superannu- 
ated" means "retired for age." 



154 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

times ten hours^ a-day attendance at a counting-house. But 
time partially reconciles us to anything. I gradually became 
content — doggedly content, as wild animals in cages. 

It is true I had my Sundays to myself ; but Sundays, admir- 
able as the institution of them is for purposes of worship, are 
for that very reason the very worst adapted for days of 
unbending and recreation. In particular, there is a gloom for 
me attendant upon a city Sunday, a weight in the air. I miss 
the cheerful cries of London, the music, and the ballad-singers 
— the buzz and stirring murmur of the streets. Those eternal 
bells depress me. The closed shops repel me. Prints, pictures, 
all the glittering and endless succession of knacks and gew- 
gaws, and ostentatiously displayed wares of tradesmen, which 
make a week-day saunter through the less busy parts of the 
metropolis so delightful — are shut out. No book-stalls delici- 
ously to idle over — no busy faces to recreate the idle man who 
contemplates them ever passing by — the very face of business 
a charm by contrast to his temporary relaxation from it. 
Nothing to be seen but unhappy countenances — or half -happy 
at l)est — of emancipated 'prentices and little tradesfolks, with 
here and there a servant maid that has got leave to go out, 
who, slaving all the week, with the habit has lost almost the 
capacity of enjoying a free hour, and livelily expressing the 
hoUowness of a day's pleasuring. The very strollers in the 
fields on that day look anything but comfortable. 

But besides Sundays I had a day at Easter, and a day at 
Christmas, with a full week in the summer to go and air 
myself in my native fields^ of Hertfordshire. This last was 
a great indulgence ; and the prospect of its recurrence, I 
believe, alone kept me up through the year, and made my 
durance tolerable. But when the week came round, did the 
glittering phantom of the distance keep touch with me? or 
rather was it not a series of seven uneasy days, spent in rest- 

2. native fields. Lamb, as has been noted, was a native of 
London, but his family came from Hertfordshire; see the essay 
on "Mackery End." 



LAMB 15^ 

less pursuit of pleasure, and a wearisome anxiety to find out 
how to make the most of them? Where was the quiet, where 
the promised rest? Before I had a taste of it, it was van- 
ished. I was at the desk again, counting upon the fifty-one 
tedious weeks that must intervene before such another snatch 
would come. Still the prospect of its coming threw something 
of an illumination upon the darker side of my captivity. With- 
out it, as I have said, I could scarcely have sustained my 
thraldom. 

Independently of the rigors of attendance, I have ever been 
haimted with a sense (perhaps a mere caprice) of incapacity 
for business. This, during my latter years, had increased to 
such a degree that it was visible in all the lines of my counte- 
nance. My health and my good spirits flagged. I had per- 
petually a dread of some crisis, to which I should be found 
unequal. Besides my daylight servitude, I served over again 
all night in my sleep, and would awake with terrors of imag- 
inary false entries, errors in my accounts, and the like. I 
was fifty years of age, and no prospect of emancipation pre- 
sented itself. I had grown to my desk, as it were; and the 
wood had entered into my soul.^ 

My fellows in the office would sometimes rally me upon the 
trouble legible in my countenance; but I did not know that it 
had raised the suspicions of any of my employers, when on the 

5th of last month, a day ever to be remembered by me, L , 

the junior partner in the firm, calling me on one side, directly 
taxed me with my bad looks, and frankly enquired the cause 
of them. So taxed, I honestly made confession of my infirm- 
ity, and added that I was afraid I should eventually be obliged 
to resign his service. He spoke some words of course to 
hearten me, and there the matter rested. A whole week I 
remained laboring under the impression that I had acted 
imprudently in my disclosure; that I had foolishly given a 

3. wood liad entered my sotQ. A playful adaptation of a 
phrase in the Prayer-Book version of Psalm 105:18, "the iron 
entered his soul." 



156 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

handle against myself, and had been anticipating my own dis- 
missal. A week passed in this manner, the most anxious one^ 
I verily believe, in my whole life, when on the evening of the 
12th of April, just as I was about quitting my desk to go 
home (it might be about eight o'clock) I received an awful 
summons to attend the presence of the whole assembled firm 
in the formidable back parlor. I thought now my time is 
surely come, I have done for myself, I am going to be told 

that they have no longer occasion for me. L , I could 

see, smiled at the terror I was in, which was a little relief to 

me, — when to my utter astonishment B , the eldest partner, 

began a formal harangue to me on the length of my services, 
my very meritorious conduct during the whole of the time 
(the deuce, thought I, how did he find that out? I protest I 
never had the confidence to think as much). He went on to 
descant on the expediency of retiring at a certain time of life 
(how my heart panted!), and, asking me a few questions as 
to the amount of my own property, of which I have a little, 
ended with a proposal, to which his three partners nodded a 
grave assent, that I should accept from the house, which I 
had served so well, a pension for life to the amount of two- 
thirds of my accustomed salary — a magnificent offer! I do 
not know what I answered between surprise and gratitude, 
but it was understood that I accepted their proposal, and I 
was told that I was free from that hour to leave their 
service. I stammered out a bow, and at just ten minutes after 
eight I went home — for ever. This noble benefit — gratitude 
forbids me to conceal their names — I owe to the kindness of 
the most munificent firm in the world — the house of Boldero, 
Merryweather, Bosanquet, and Lacy. Esto perpetual^ 

For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. I 
could only apprehend my felicity ; I was too confused to taste 
it sincerely. I wandered about, thinking I was happy, and 
knowing that I was not. I was in the condition of a prisoner 

4. Esto perpetua. May it be perpetual! 



LAMB 157 

in the Old Bastile,^ suddenly let loose after a forty years' 
confinement. I could scarce trust myself with myself. It 
was like passing out of Time into Eternity — for it is a sort of 
Eternity for a man to have his Time all to himself. It seemed 
to me that I had more time on my hands than I could ever 
manage. From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly 
lifted up into a vast revenue ; I could see no end of my posses- 
sions; I wanted some steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage 
my estates in Time for me. And here let me caution persons 
grown old in active business, not lightly, nor without weighing 
their own resources, to forego their customary employment all 
at once, for there may be danger in it. I feel it by myself, 
but I know that my resources are sufficient; and now that 
those first giddy raptures have subsided, I have a quiet home- 
feeling of the blessedness of my condition. I am in no hurry. 
Having all holidays, I am as though I had none. If Time 
hung heavy upon me, I could walk it away; but I do not 
walk all day long, as I used to do in those old transient holi- 
days, thirty miles a day, to make the most of them. If Time 
were troublesome, I could read it away, but I do not read 
in that violent measure with which, having no Time my own 
but candlelight Time, I used to weary out my head and eye- 
sight in by-gone winters. I walk, read, or scribble (as now) 
just when the fit seizes me. I no longer hunt after pleasure; 
I let it come to me. I am like the man 

— ^that's bom, and has his years come to him, 
In some green desert.^ 

"Years," you will say ; "what is this superannuated simpleton 
calculating upon? He has already told us he is past fifty.'' 
. I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out 
of them the hours which I have lived to other people, and 
not to myself, and you will find me still a young fellow. For 

5. Old Bastile. The notorious state prison in Paris. 

6. that's boni, etc. Inaccurately quoted from a comedy called 
The Mayor of Qtamborough, by Thomas Middleton, 



158 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

that is the only true Time, which a man can properly call his 
own, that which he has all to himself; the rest, though in 
some sense he may be said to live it, is other people's time, 
not his. The remnant of my poor days, long or short, is at 
least multiplied for me threefold. My next ten years, if I 
stretch so far, will be as long as any preceding thirty. 'Tis a 
fair rule-of-three sum. 

Among the strange fantasies which beset me at the com- 
mencement of my freedom, and of which all traces are not 
yet gone, one was, that a vast tract of time had intervened 
since I quitted the Counting House. I could not conceive 
of it as an affair of yesterday. The partners, and the clerks 
with whom I had for so many years, and for so many hours 
in each day of the year, been so closely associated — ^being 
suddenly removed from them — they seemed as dead to me. 
There is a fine passage, which may serve to illustrate this 
fancy, in a tragedy*^ by Sir Robert Howard, speaking of a 
friend's death: 

'Twas but just now he went away; 



I have not since had time to shed a tear; 
And yet the distance does the same appear 
As if he had been a thousand years from me. 
Time takes no measure in Eternity. 

To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain to go 
among them once or twice since ; to visit my old desk-fellows — 
my co-brethren of the quill — that I had left below in the state 
militant.® Not all the kindness with which they received me 
could quite restore to me that pleasant familiarity which I had 
heretofore enjoyed among them. We cracked some of our old 
jokes, but methought they went off but faintly. My old desk, 
the peg where I hung my hat, were appropriated to another. 
I knew it must be, but I could not take it kindly. D 1 

7. a tragredy. The Vestal Virgin (1665). 

8. state militant. A theolog"ical phrase applied to the state 
of the church on earth, as opposed to its triumphant state hereafter. 



LAMB • 159 

take me, if I did not feel some remorse — beast, if I had not — 

at quitting my old compeers, the faithful partners of my 

toils for six and thirty years, that smoothed for me with their 

jokes and conundrums the ruggedness of my professional road. 

Had it been so rugged then after all ? or was I a coward sim-^ 

ply? Well, it is too late to repent; and I also know that 

these suggestions are a common fallacy of the mind on such 

I occasions. But my heart smote me. I had violently broken 

the bands betwixt us. It was at least not courteous. I shall 

J be some time before I get quite reconciled to the separation. 

r Farewell, old cronies, yet not for long, for again and again 

I will come among ye, if I shall have your leave. Farewell, 

I Ch , dry, sarcastic, and friendly ! Do , mild, slow to 

I move, and gentlemanly ! PI ,^ officious to do, and to volun- 
teer, good services ! — and thou, thou dreary pile, fit mansion 
for a Gresham^^ or a Whittington^^ of old, stately House of 
i Merchants ; with thy labyrinthine passages, and light-excluding, 
pent-up offices, where candles for one-half the year supplied 
I the place of the sun's light ; unhealthy contributor to my weal, 
' stern fosterer of my living, farewell ! In thee remain, and 
[ not in the obscure collection of some wandering bookseller, my 
"works!'' There let them rest, as I do from my labors, piled 
on thy massy shelves, more MSS. in folio than ever Aquinas^^^^ 
left, and full as useful ! My mantle I bequeath among ye. — 

A fortnight had passed since the date of my first communi- 
cation. At that period I was approaching to tranquillity, but 
had not reached it. I boasted of a calm indeed, but it was 
comparative only. Something of the first flutter was left; an 
unsettling sense of novelty; the dazzle to weak eyes of unac- 

9. Ch , Do , PI . Characters at the India House, said 

to be named Chambers, Dodwell, and Plumley. 

10. Gresliam. Sir Thomas Gresham, who founded the Royal 
Exchang-e in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

11. Whittlngiion. Sir Richard Whitting-ton (died 1423), famous 
as thrice Lord Mayor of London. 

12. Aquinas. St. Thomas Aquinas (died 1274), a theologian 
and philosopher, whose works, in the first printed edition, filled 
seventeen folio volumes. 



160 ESSAYS— ENt^LISH AND AMERICAN 

customed light. I missed my old chains, forsooth, as if they 
had been some necessary part of my apparel. I was a poor 
Carthusian,^^ from strict cellular discipline suddenly by some 
revolution returned upon the world. I am now as if I had 
never been other than my own master. It is natural to me to 
go where I please, to do what I please. I find myself at eleven 
o'clock in the day in Bond Street,^* and it seems to me that I 
have been sauntering there at that very hour for years past. 
I digress into Soho, to explore a book-stall. Methinks I have 
been thiii;y years a collector. There is nothing strange nor 
new in it. I find myself before a fine etching in the morning. 
Was it ever otherwise? What is become of Fish Street Hill? 
Where is Fenchurch Street? Stones of old Mincing Lane, 
which I have worn with my daily pilgrimage for six and thirty 
years, to the footsteps of what toil-worn clerk are your ever- 
lasting flints^^ now vocal? I indent the gayer flags of Pall 
Mall. It is 'Change time,^^ and I am strangely among the 
Elgin marbles.^'^ It was no hyperbole when I ventured to 
compare the change in my condition to a passing into another 
world. Time stands still in a manner to me. I have lost all 
distinction of season. I do not know the day of the week, 
or of the month. Each day used to be individually felt by me 
in its reference to the foreign post days; in its distance from, 
or propinquity to, the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday 
feelings, my Saturday nights' sensations. The genius of each 
day was upon me distinctly during the whole of it, affecting 

13. Cartliusiaii. Monk of the Carthusian order. 

14. Bond Street, etc. Bond Street is a main thoroughfare, once 
a fashionable promenade, now filled with shops. Solio is a Lon- 
don square, the scene of much g-aiety in the Georgian era, Fisli 
Street Hill, Pencliurcli Street, and Mincingr Lane are all In the 
"city" proper, — the central wholesale business district, whereas 
the Pall Mall is a handsome street leading toward the residential 
West End. 

15. everlastingr flints. A Shakespearean phrase (Romeo and Julief, 
II. vl). 

16. 'Cliang'e time. The time when the Exchange is open for 
business. 

17. Elgin marbles. Pieces of Greek sculpture in the British 
Museum, brought to England by Lord Elgin. 



LAMB 161 

my appetite, spirits, &e. The phantom of the next day, with 
the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor Sabbath 
recreations. What charm has washed the Ethiop white ^^^ 
What is gone of Black Monday? All the days are the same. 
Sunday itself — that unfortunate failure of a holiday, as it too 
often proved, what with my sense of its f ugitiveness, and over- 
care to get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it — ^is 
melted down into a week day. I can spare to go to church 
now, without grudging the huge cantle^® which it used to cut 
out of the holiday. I have Time for everything. I can visit 
a sick friend. I can interrupt the man of much occupation 
when he is busiest. I can insult over him with an invitation 
to take a day's pleasure with me to Windsor this fine May- 
morning. It is Lucretian pleasure^^ to behold the poor drudges, 
whom I have left behind in the world, carking^i and caring; 
like horses in a mill, drudging on in the same eternal round — 
and what is it all for? A man can never have too much 
Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little son, I 
would christen him NO THING-TO-DO; he should do nothing. 
Man, I verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is 
operative. I am altogether for the life contemplative. Will 
no kindly earthquake come and swallow up those accursed 
cotton mills P^ Take me that lumber of a desk there, and bowl 
it down 

As low as to the fiends. ^^ 
I am no longer ***** *^ clerk to the firm of, &c. I am 
Retired Leisure. ^^ I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am 
already come to be known by my vacant face and careless 

18. washed tlie JStliiop white. See Jeremiah 13:23. 

19. cantle. Slice. 

20. liucretian pleasure. A phrase derived from a famous pas- 
sage in the poet Lucretius; see Bacon's rendering of it on page 21. 

21. carkingr. Anxious. 

22. accursed cotton mills. Chosen as typical of the busy age of 
machinery. 

23. 'As low, etc. From Hamlet, II, ii. 

24. Retired Iieisure. A Miltonic phrase, from II Penseroso. 



162 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace nor with any settled 
purpose. I walk about; not to and from. They tell me, a 
certain cum dignitate^^ air, that has been buried so long with 
toy other good parts, has begun to shoot forth in my person. 
I grow into gentility perceptibly. When I take up a news- 
paper it is to read the state of the opera. Opus operatum est.^^ 
I have done all that I came into this world to do. I have 
worked task-work, and have the rest of the day to myself. 

PREFACE! 

BY A FRIEND OF THE LATE ELIA 

This poor gentleman, who for some months past had been 
in a declining way, hath at length paid his final tribute to 
nature. 

To say truth, it is time he were gone. The humor of the 
thing, if there ever was much in it, was pretty well exhausted ; 
and a two years' and a half existence has been a tolerable 
duration for a phantom. 

I am now at liberty to confess that much which I have heard 
objected to my late friend's writings was well-founded. Crude 
they are, I grant you — a sort of unlicked, incondite^ things — 
villainously pranked in an affected array of antique modes and 
phrases. They had not been Ms, if they had been other than 
such; and better it is, that a writer should be natural in a 
self -pleasing quaintness, than to affect a naturalness (so 
called) that should be strange to him. Egotistical they have 
been pronounced by some who did not know that what he 

25. cum digitate. In allusion to the Ciceronian phrase otium 
cum dignitate, dignified leisure. 

26. Opus operatum est. The work is finished. 

1. This essay first appeared in the London Magazine for January, 
1823, .shortly after the publication of the first volume of Elia 
Essays, when Lamb apparently intended to discontinue the series. 
He later used it, in revised form, as the preface to the volume of 
Last Essays of Elia, 1833. It is a notable example of his ability to 
understand himself and criticize his own work, — playfully but 
soundly. 

2. Incondite. Unpolished. 



LAMB 163 

tells us, as of himself, was often true only (historically) 
of another; as in a former essay^ (to save many instances) — 
where the first person (his favorite figure) he shadows forth 
the forlorn estate of a country-boy placed at a London school, 
far from his friends and connections — in direct opposition to 
his own early history. If it be egotism to imply and twine 
with his own identity the griefs and affections of another — 
making himself many, or reducing many unto himself — then 
is the skilful novelist, who all along brings in his hero or 
heroine, speaking of themselves, the greatest egotist of all; 
who yet has never, therefore, been accused of that narrow- 
ness. And how shall the intenser dramatist escape being 
faulty, who, doubtless, under cover of passion uttered by 
another, oftentimes gives blameless vent to his most inward 
feelings, and expresses his own story modestly? 

My late friend was in many respects a singular character. 
Those who did not like him, hated him; and some, who once 
liked him, afterwards became his bitterest haters. The truth 
is, he gave himself too little concern what he uttered, and in 
whose presence. He observed neither time nor place, and would 
e'en out with what came uppermost. With the severe religion- 
ist he would pass for a free-thinker ; while the other faction set 
him down for a bigot, or persuaded themselves that he belied 
his sentiments. Few understood him; and I am not certain 
that at all times he quite understood himself. He too much 
affected that dangerous figure — irony. He sowed doubtful 
speeches, and reaped plain, unequivocal hatred. — He would 
interrupt the gravest discussion with some light jest; and yet, 
perhaps, not quite irrelevant, in ears that could understand it. 
Your long and much talkers hated him. The informal habit of 
his mind, joined to an inveterate impediment of speech, for- 
bade him to be an orator; and he seemed determined that no 
one else should play that part when he was present. He was. 

3. a former essay. The one called "Christ's Hospital Five and 
Thirty Years Ag"©," in which Lamb wrote from the assumed 
viewpoint of Coleridg"e and his boyhood, rather than from his own. 



164 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

petit^ and ordinary in his person and appearance. I have 
seen him sometimes in what is called good company, but where 
he has been a stranger, sit silent, and be suspected for an odd 
fellow; till, some unlucky occasion provoking it, he would 
stutter out some senseless pun (not altogether senseless per- 
haps, if rightly taken), which has stamped his character for 
the evening. It was hit .or miss with him; but nine times out 
of ten, he contrived by this device to send away a whole com- 
pany his enemies. His conceptions rose kindlier than his utter- 
ance, and his happiest impromptus had the appearance of 
effort. He has been accused of trying to be witty, when in 
truth he was but struggling to give his poor thoughts articula- 
tion. He chose his companions for some individuality of char- 
acter which they manifested. — Hence, not many persons of 
science, and few professed literati^ were of his councils. They 
were, for the most part, persons of an uncertain fortune ; and, 
as to such people commonly nothing is more obnoxious than a 
gentleman of settled (though moderate) income, he passed with 
most of them for a great miser. To my knowledge this was a 
mistake. His intimados,^ to confess a truth, were in the world's 
eye a ragged regiment. He found them floating on the surface 
of society ; and the color, or something else, in the weed pleased 
him. The burrs stuck to him — but they were good and loving 
burrs for all that. He never greatly cared for the society of 
what are called good people. If any of these were scandalized 
(and offences were sure to arise), he could not help it. When 
he has been remonstrated with for not making more concessions 
to the feelings of good people, he would retort by asking, 
what one point did these good people ever concede to himf 
He was temperate in his meals and diversions, but always 
kept a little on this side of abstemiousness. Only in the 
use of the Indian weed he might be thought a little excessive. 
He took it, he would say, as a solvent of speech. Marry — as 

4. petit. Slight 

5. intimados. Intimates. 



LAMB 165 

the friendly vapor ascended, how his prattle would curl up 
sometimes with it! the ligaments which tongue-tied him were 
loosened, and the stammerer proceeded a statist !^ 

I do not know whether I ought to bemoan or rejoice that 
my old friend is departed. His jests were beginning to grow 
obsolete, and hm stories to be found out. He felt the 
approaches of age; and while he pretended to cling to life, 
you saw how slender were the ties left to bind him. Discours- 
ing with him latterly on this subject, he expressed himself 
with a pettishness which I thought unworthy of him. In our 
walks about his suburban retreat (as he called it) at Shackle- 
well, some children belonging to a school of industry had met 
us, and bowed and curtseyed, as he thought, in an especial 
manner to him, '^They take me for a visiting governor,"^ he 
muttered earnestly. He had a horror, which he carried to a 
foible, of looking like anything important and parochial. He 
thought that he approached nearer to that stamp daily. He 
had a general aversion from being treated like a grave or 
respectable character, and kept a wary eye upon the advances 
of age that should so entitle him. He herded always, while it 
was possible, with people younger than himself. He did not 
conform to the march of time, but was dragged along in the 
procession. His manners lagged behind his years. He was 
too much of the boy-man. The toga virilis^ never sate grace- 
fully upon his shoulders. The impressions of infancy had 
burnt into him, and he resented the impertinence of manhood. 
These were weaknesses; but such as they were, they are a 
key to explicate some of his writings. 



6. statist. Statesman. 

7. gfovemor. Director of the school. 

8. togra virilis. Garment of manhood. 



WILLIAM HAZLITT 

[William Hazlitt was born ^pril 10, 1778, into the family of a 
dissenting (Unitarian) minister. He was himself educated for 
the ministry, but turned his attention to painting, philosophy, 
and literature. In 1797 he made the acquaintance of Coleridge, 
who exerted a strong influence upon him, and whose character 
he has vividly portrayed. He became a dramatic critic for the Lon- 
don Chronicle, 8jnd a contributor to various journals, especially those 
edited by Leigh Hunt, winning a reputation as one of the most 
vigorous writers on the side of radicalism in society and politics. 
His personal life was prevailingly unhappy, his marriage proving 
unfortunate, and his disposition sometimes interfering with 
friendships; the defeat of the cause of republicanism in France 
also embittered his later years. He died in comparative poverty 
in 1830.] 

ON GOING A JOURNEY! 

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a jour- 
ney; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; 
but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am 
then never less alone than when alone. 

The fields his study, Nature was his book. 2 

I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. 
When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. 
I am not for criticizing hedge-rows and black cattle. I go 
out of town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. 
There are those who for this purpose go to watering-places, 
^nd carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow-room, 
and fewer incumbrances. I like solitude, when I give myself 
up to it, for the sake of solitude ; nor do I ask for 

a friend in my retreat, 
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.s 

1. This essay is found in the volume called Table Talk (1822). 

2. The fields liis study, etc. From a poem by Robert Bloom- 
field, "The Farmer's Boy." 

3. a friend in my retreat, etc. From Cowper's poem "Retire- 
ment." 

166 



HAZLITT 167 

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, 
feel, do, just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be 
free of all impediments and of all inconveniences ; to leave our- 
selves behind, much more to get rid of others. It is because 
I want a little breathing-space to muse on indi^erent matters, 
where Contemplation 

May plume her feathers and let grow her wings, 

That in the various bustle of resort 

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd,^ 

that I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling 
at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend 
in a post-chaise or in a Tilbury,^ to exchange good things with 
and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have 
a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my 
head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road 
before me, and a three hours' march to dinner — and then ta 
thinking ! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone 
heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point 
of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my past being, and revel 
there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave 
that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things, 
like "sunken wrack and sumless treasuries,''^ burst upon my 
eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. 
Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or 
dull commonplaces, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart 
which alone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns, alliter- 
ations, antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do ; but 
I sometimes had rather be without them. "Leave, oh, leave me 
to my repose !"^ I have just now other business in hand, which 
would seem idle to you, but is with me "very stuff o' the con- 

4. May pltune lier featliers, etc. Prom Milton's Comus. 

5. Tilbury. A gig- or two- wheeled carriage without a top, 
named for the inventor. 

6. snnlEen wract, etc. From Shakespeare's Henry Fifth, I, ii. 

7. l^eave, oh leave me, etc. The refrain of Gray's translation 
of the Norse "Descent of Odin." 



168 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

science."® Is not this wild rose sweet without a comment? 
Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of emerald 1 
Yet if I were to explain to you the circumstance that has so 
endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better then 
keep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here 
to yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far- 
distant horizon? I should be bad company all that way, and 
therefore prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you 
may, when the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, 
and indulge your reveries. But this looks like a breach of 
manners, as neglect of others, and you are thinking all the time 
that you ought to rejoin your party. "Out upon such half- 
faced fellowship,"^ say I. I like to be either entirely to myself, 
or entirely at the disposal of others; to talk or be silent, to 
walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I was pleased with 
an observation of Mr. Cobbett's,^^ that "he thought it a bad 
French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that an 
Englishman ought to do only one thing at a time." Sol 
cannot talk and think, or indulge in melancholy musing and 
lively conversation by fits and starts. "Let me have a com- 
panion of my way," says Steme,^^" were it but to remark how 
the shadows lengthen as the sun declines." It is beautifully 
said; but in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes 
interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the 
mind, and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel 
in a kind of dumb show, it is insipid : if you have to explain it, 
it is making a toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of 
nature without being perpetually put to the trouble of trans- 
lating it for the benefit of others. I am for the synthetical 



8, staff o» tlie conscience. From Othello^ 1, ii. 

9. Out upon, etc. From Shakespeare's Henry Fourth, Part !» 
I, iii. 

10. Cobbett. A political writer and Member of Parliament 
(1766-1835). 

11. Sterne. A novelist and miscellaneous writer of the eight- 
eenth century. 



HAZLITT 169 

method^ 2 on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am 
content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and 
anatomize them afterwards. 1 want to see my vague notions 
float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to 
have them entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. 
For once, I like to have it all my own way ; and this is impos- 
sible unless you are alone, or in such company as I do not 
covet. I have no objection to argue a point with any one for 
twenty miles of measured road, but not for pleasure. If you 
remark the scent of a bean-field crossing the road, perhaps 
your fellow-traveler has no smell. If you point to a distant 
object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his 
glass to look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the 
color of a cloud which hits your fancy, but the effect of which 
you are unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but 
an uneasy craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues 
you on the way, and in the end probably produces ill-humor. 
Now I never c[uarrel with myself, and take all my own 
conclusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend them 
against objections. It is not merely that you may not be of 
accord on the objects and circumstances that present them- 
selves before you — these may recall a number of objects, and 
lead to associations too delicate and refined to be possibly 
communicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and some- 
times still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from the 
throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before company, 
seems extravagance or affectation; and on the other hand, to 
have to unravel this mystery of our being at every turn, and to 
make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise the end 
is not answered) is a task to which few are competent. We 
must ^^give it an understanding, but no tongue."^^ My old 
friend C ,^* however, could do both. He could go on in 

12. syntlietical method. The method of putting- tog-ether, as 
compared with that of taking apart (analytical). 

13. give it an understanding", etc. From Hamlet, I, ii. 

14. old friend C. Coleridge. 



170 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICxiN 

the most delightful explanatory way over hill and dale, a 
summer's day, and convert a landscape into a didactic poem or 
a Pindaric ode. ^^He talked far above singing,"^^ If I could so 
clothe my ideas in sounding and flowing words, I might perhaps 
wish to have some one with me to admire the swelling theme; 
or I could be more content, were it possible for me still to hear 
his echoing voice in the woods of All-Foxden.^^ They had 
"that fine madness in them which our first poets had" ;^^ and if 
they could have been caught by some rare instrument, would 
have breathed such strains as the following: 

Here be woods as green 
As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet 
As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet 
Face of the curled stream, with flowers as many 
As the young spring gives, and as choice as any; 
Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells, 
Arbors overgrown with woodbine, caves and dells; 
Choose where thou wilt, while I sit by and sing, 
Or gather rushes to make many a ring 
For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love, 
How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, 
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes 
She took eternal fire that never dies; 
How she convey'd him softly in a sleep. 
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep 
Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night. 
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, 
To kiss her sweetest. ^y^^ Faithful Shepherdess. ^<^) 

15. He talked) etc. From Beaumont and Fletcher's play 
Philaster. 

16. AU-Foxden. The residence of Wordsworth, in Somerset, 
In 1797, when Coleridge lived near by at Nether Stowey. The 
young Hazlitt paid them both a visit at this time, which he has 
described in an essay called "My First Acquaintance with Poets." 
Of the walk home from Alfoxden (as it is commonly written) 
he writes: "Coleridge and myself walked back to Stowey that 
evening, and his voice sounded high ... as we passed through 
echoing grove, by fairy stream or waterfall, gleaming in the 
summer moonlight." 

17. tliat fine madness, etc. From a poem by Drayton, "Censure 
of Poets." 

18. Tlie PaitMul Shepherdess. A play by John Fletcher (1609). 



HAZLITT 171 

Had I words and images at command like these, I would 
attempt to wake the thoughts that lie slumbering on golden 
ridges in the evening clouds: but at the sight of nature my 
fancy, poor as it is, droops and closes up its leaves, like 
flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out on the spot: — 
I must have time to collect myself. 

In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it 

should be reserved for table-talk. L ^^ is for this reason, 

I take it, the worst company in the world out of doors; 
because he is the best within. I grant, there is one subject 
on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey; and that is, 
what one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at 
night. The open air improves this sort of conversation or 
friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. 
Every mile of the road heightens the flavor of the viands we 
expect at the end of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, 
walled and turreted, just at the approach of night-fall, or ta 
come to some straggling village, with the lights streaming 
through the surrounding gloom; and then, after inquiring 
for the best entertainment that the place affords, to "take 
one's ease at one's inn I"^^ These eventful moments in our 
lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heart-felt 
happiness, to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect 
sympathy. I would have them all to myself, and drain them 
to the last drop; they will do to talk of or to write about 
afterwards. What a delicate speculation it is, after drinking 
whole goblets of tea. 

The cups that cheer, but not inebriatejSi 

and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering 
what we shall have for supper — eggs and a rasher, a rabbit 
smothered in onions, or an excellent veal cutlet! Sancho^^ 

19. Im Lamb. 

20. taie one's ease, etc. From Henry Fourth, Part I, III, iii. 

21. cups tliat cheer, etc. From Cowper*s poem "The Task." 

22. Sancho. The squire of Don Quixote, in Cervantes's romance. 



172 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

in such a situation once fixed upon cow-heel; and his choice, 
though he could not help it, is not to be disparaged. Then, 
in the intervals of pictured scenery and Shandean^^ con- 
templation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the kitchen 
— Proculj O procul este profaniP^ These hours are sacred to 
silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and 
to feed the source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not 
waste them in idle talk; or if I must have the integrity of 
fancy broken in upon, I would rather it v/ere by a stranger 
than a friend. A stranger takes his hue and character from 
the time and place; he is a part of the furniture and costume 
of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from the West Riding^^ of 
Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try to sym- 
pathize with him, and he breaks no squares.^^ I associate 
nothing with my traveling companion but present objects and 
passing events. In his ignorance of me and my affairs, I in a 
manner forgot myself. But a friend reminds one of other 
things, rips up old grievances, and destroys the abstraction of 
the scene. He comes in ungraciously between us and our 
imaginary character. Something is dropped in the course of 
conversation that gives a hint of your profession and pursuits ; 
or from having someone with you that knows the less sublime 
portions of your history, it seems that other people do. You 
are no longer a citizen of the world ; but your "unhoused free 
condition is put into circumspection and confine."-^ The 
incognito of an inn is one of its striking privileges — "lord 



23. Sliandean. In the manner of Mr. Shandy, father of Tristram 
Shandy, in Sterne's novel of that title; the meaning- is, whimsi- 
cally discursive. 

24. Procul, etc. "Retire hence, ye profane!" — the warningr to 
the uninitiated to keep aloof from sacred ceremonies (found in 
Vergil's ^neid. Book VI). 

25. West Riding-. One of the "ridings," administrative divis- 
ions, into which Yorkshire was divided; a person from this 
district would be an extreme provincial. 

26. breaks no squares. Does not throw things out of order; 
makes no difference. 

27. nnlioused free condition. From Othello, I, it 



HAZLITT 173 

of one's self, uncumbered with a name."^^ Oh ! it is great 
to shake off the trammels of the world and of public opinion — 
to lose our importunate, tormenting, everlasting personal 
identity in the elements of nature, and become the creature 
of the moment, clear of all ties — to hold to the universe only 
by a dish of sweetbreads, and to owe nothing but the score 
of the evening — and no longer seeking for applause and meet- 
ing with contempt, to be known by no other title than the 
Gentleman in the parlor! One may take one's choice of all 
characters in this romantic state of uncertainty as to one's 
real pretentions, and become indefinitely respectable and 
negatively right-worshipful. We baffle prejudice and dis- 
appoint conjecture; and from being so to others, begin to be 
objects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no 
more- those hackneyed commonplaces that we appear in the 
world: an inn restores us to the level of nature, and quits 
scores with society! I have certainly spent some enviable 
hours at inns — sometimes when I have been left entirely to 
myself, and have tried to solve some metaphysical problem, 
as once at Witham Common, where I found out the proof 
that likeness is not a case of the association of ideas — at other 
times, when there have been pictures in the room, as at St. 
Neot's (I think it was), where I first met with Gribelin's 
engravings^® of the Cartoons, into which I entered at once, 
and at a little inn on the borders of Wales, where there 
happened to be hanging some of WestalFs^^ drawings, which 
I compared triumphantly (for a theory that I had, not for 
the admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had ferried 
me over the Severn, standing up in a boat between me and 
the twilight — at other times I might mention luxuriating in 
books, with a peculiar interest in this way, as I remember 

28. lord of oneself, etc. From a poem of Dryden's, "To my 
Honored Kinsman John Dryden." 

29. Gribeliu's engraviiig-s. In 1707 the engraver Gribelin made 
a series of plates of the famous cartoons (drawing's) of Raphael 
kept in Hampton Court palace. 

30. Westall. A prominent historical painter (1765-1836). 



174 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

sitting up half the night to read Paul and Virginia,^'^ which I 
picked up at an inn at Bridgewater, after being drenched in 
the rain all day; and at the same place I got through two 
volumes of Madame D'Arblay's Camilla.^^ It was on the 10th 
of April, 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the New 
Eloise,^^ Sit the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and 
a cold chicken. The letter I chose was that in which St. Preux 
describes his feelings as he first caught a glimpse from the 
heights of the Jura of the Pays de Vaud,^^ which I had 
brought with me as a h on houche^^ to crown the evening with. 
It was my birthday, and I had for the first time come from 
a place in the neighborhood to visit this delightful spot. The 
road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; 
and on passing a certain point, you come all at once upon the 
valley, which opens like an amphitheater, broad, barren hills 
rising in majestic state on either side, with "green upland 
swells that echo to the bleat of flocks"^^ below, and the river 
Dee babbling over its stony bed in the midst of them. The 
valley at this time "glittered green with sunny showers," and 
a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the chiding 
stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along the high 
road that overlooks the delicious prospect, repeating the lines 
which I have just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's poems! But 
besides the prospect which opened beneath my feet, another 
also opened to my inward sight, a heavenly vision, on which 
were written, in letters large as Hope could make them, these 

31. Paul and Virginia. A romance by Bernardin de St. Pierre, 
published in 1788; translated into English in 1796. 

32. Camilla. A novel by Frances Burney (Madame d'Arblay); 
published 1796. 

33. New Hloise. A romance by Jean Jacques Rousseau; pub- 
lished 1761. 

34. Fays de Vaud. The country of the Vaudois. 

35. bon bouchc. Delicacy. 

36. green upland swells, etc. From Coleridg-e's "Ode on the 
Departing Year": 

Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers, 
Glitter green with sunny showers; 
Thy grassy uplands' grentle swells 
Echo to the bleat of flocks. 



HAZLITT 175 

four words, LIBERTY, GENIUS, LOVE, VIRTUE; which 
have since faded into the light of common dsLy,^"^ or mock my 
idle gaze. 

The beautiful is vanished, and returns not.38 

Still I would return some time or other to this enchanted 
spot; but I would return to it alone. What other self could 
I find to share that influx of thoughts, of regret, and delight, 
the fragments of which I could hardly conjure up to mysdf, 
so much have they been broken and defaced ! I could stand 
on some tall rock, and overlook the precipice of years that 
separates me from what I then was. I was at that time 
going shortly to visit the poet whom I have above named. 
Where is he now?^^ Not only I myself have changed; the 
world, which was then new to me, has become old and incor- 
rigible. Yet will I turn to thee in thought, sylvan Dee, in 
joy, in youth and gladness as thou then wert; and thou shalt 
always be to me the river of Paradise, where I will drink of 
the waters of life freely ! 

There is hardly any thing that shows the short-sightedness 
or capriciousness of the imagination more than traveling does. 
With change of place we change our ideas ; nay, our opinions 
and feelings. We can by an effort indeed transport ourselves 
to old and long-forgotten scenes, and then the picture of the 
mind revives again; but we forget those that we have just 
left. It seems that we can think but of one place at a time. 
The canvas of the fancy is but of a certain extent, and if we 
paint one set of objects upon it, they immediately efface -every 
other. We cannot enlarge our conceptions, we only shift our 

37. faded into tlie lig'lit, etc. A phrase drawn from Words- 
worth's ode, "Intimations of Immortality"; Hazlitt is referring- to 
the fading of the hopes excited on behalf of liberty by the French 
Revolution. 

88. Tlie "beautiful is vanished, etc. From Coleridge's version 
of Schiller's The, Death of Wallenstein, V, i. 

39. "WTiere is lie now? At this time Coleridge was living in 
retirement, with friends who soug-ht to help him to conquer the 
opium habit; Hazlitt's question alludes, however, to the where- 
abouts of his opinions, Coleridge having^ deserted the radical 
group of thinkers. 



176 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AlVIERICAN 

point of view. The landscape bares its bosom to the enrap- 
tured eye, we take our fill of it, and seem as if we could form 
no other image of beauty or grandeur. We pass on, and think 
no more of it ; the horizon that shuts it from our sight also blots 
it from our memory like a dream. In traveling through a 
wild barren country, I can form no idea of a woody and cul- 
tivated one. It appears to me that all the world must be 
barren, like what I see of it. In the country we forget the 
town, and in town we despise the country. "Beyond Hyde 
Park," says Sir Fopling Flutter,*® "all is a desert." All that 
part of the map that we do not see before us is a blank. 
The world in our conceit of it is not much bigger than a nut- 
shell. It is not one prospect expanded into another, county 
joined to county, kingdom to kingdom, lands to seas, making 
an image voluminous and vast; the mind can form no larger 
idea of space than the eye can take in at a single glance. 
The rest is a name written in a map, a calculation of arith- 
metic. For instance, what is the true signification of that 
immense mass of territory and population known by the name 
of China to us? An inch of pasteboard on a wooden globe, 
of no more account than a China orange ! Things near us are 
seen of the size of life: things at a distance are diminished 
to the size of the understanding. We measure the universe 
by ourselves, and even comprehend the texture of our own 
being only piecemeal. In this wa.y, however, we remember 
an infinity of things and places. The mind is like a mechan- 
ical ipstrument that plays a great variety of tunes, but it must 
play them in succession. One idea recalls another, but it at 
the same time excludes all others. In trying to renew old 
recollections, we cannot as it were unfold the whole web of 
our existence; we must pick out the single threads. So in 
coming to a place where we have formerly lived and with 
which we have intimate associations, every one must have 

40. Sir Popling" Flutter. The hero of a comedy by Etheregre 
(1676). 



HAZLITT 177 

found that the feeling grows more vivid the nearer we approach 
the spot, from the mere anticipation of the actual impression : 
we remember circumstances, feelings, persons, faces, names, 
that we had not thought of for years; but for the time all the 
rest of the world is forgotten ! 

To return to the question I have quitted above. — I have no 
objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictures, in company 
with a friend or a party, but rather the contrary, for the 
former reason reversed. They are intelligible matters, and 
will bear talking about. The sentiment here is not tacit, but 
communicable and overt. Salisbury Plain is barren of criti- 
cism, but Stonehenge*^ will bear a discussion antiquarian, 
picturesque, and philosophical. In setting out on a party of 
pleasure, the first consideration always is where we shall go 
to: in taking a solitary ramble, the question is what we shall 
meet with by the way. ^^The mind is its own place ;"^2 nor 
are we anxious to arrive at the end of our journey. I can 
myself do the honors indiferently well to works of art and 
curiosity. I once took a party^^ to Oxford with no mean 
eclat — showed them that seat of the Muses at a distance, 

With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn'd,** 

descanted on the learned air that breathes from the grassy 
quadrangles and stone walls of halls and cottages — was at 
home in the Bodleian ;*^ and at Blenheim*^ quite superseded the 

41. Stonelieng'e. A prehistoric group of monumental stones on 
Salisbury Plain, associated with ancient Celtic civilization. 

42. Tlie mind is, etc. From Paradise Lost, Book I. 

43. once took a party. In 1810 Hazlitt visited Oxford with 
Charles and Mary Lamb. In the essay "On the Conversation of 
Authors" (the latter portion, not included in the present volume) 
he refers to this visit in an interesting passage, saying that 
among country people Lamb seemed odd and out of place; "but 
when we crossed the country to Oxford, then he spoke a little. 
He and the old colleges were hail-fellow well met, and in the 
quadrangles he 'walked gowned.' " 

44. Witli grlisterin^ spires, etc. Prom Paradise Lost, Book III. 

45. Bodleian, The great ancient library at Oxford. 

46. Blenlxeim. A mansion in Oxfordshire, built by the nation 
for the first Duke of Marlborough after his victory at the Battle 
of Blenheim. 



178 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

powdered Cieerone^^ that attended us, and that pointed in 
vain with his wand to commonplace beauties in matchless 
pictures. As another exception to the above reasoning, I 
should not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a for- 
eign country without a companion. I should want at intervals 
to hear the sound of my own language. There is an involun- 
tary antipathy in the mind of an Englishman to foreign 
manners and notions that requires the assistance of social 
sympathy to carry it off. As the distance from home increases, 
this relief, which was at first a luxury, becomes a passion and 
an appetite. A person would almost feel stifled to find him- 
self in the deserts of Arabia without friends and countrymen : 
there must be allowed to be something in the view of Athens 
or old Rome that claims the utterance of speech; and I own 
that the Pyramids are too mighty for any single contemplation. 
In such situations, so opposite to all one^s ordinary train of 
ideas, one seems a species by one's self, a limb torn off from 
society, unless one can meet with instant fellowship and 
support. Yet I did not feel this want or craving very press- 
ing once, when I first set my foot on the laughing shores of 
France.^^ Calais was peopled with novelty and delight. The 
confused, busy murmur of the place was like oil and wine 
poured into my ears; nor did the Mariners' Hymn, which was 
sung from the top of an old crazy vessel in the harbor, as the 
sun went down, send an alien sound into my soul. I onty 
breathed the air of general humanity. I walked over "the 
vine-covered hills and gay regions of France,"*^ erect and 
satisfied ; for the image of man was not cast down and chained 
to the foot of arbitrary thrones : I was at no loss for language, 
for that of all the great schools of painting was open to me. 
The whole is vanished like a shade. Pictures, heroes, glory, 

47. Cicerone. Guide. 

4S. first set my foot. In October, 1802, when Hazlitt was on his 
way to Paris to study painting-. 

49. the vine-covered hills, etc. From a poem by William Roscoe, 
"Lines Written in 1788." 



HAZLITT 179 

freedom, all are fled: nothing remains but the Bourbons^^ 
and the French people! — There is undoubtedly a sensation in 
traveling into foreign parts that is to be had nowhere else : but 
it is more pleasing at the time than lasting. It is too remote 
from our habitual associations to be a common topic of dis- 
course or reference, and, like a dream or another state of 
existence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is an 
animated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an effort 
to exchange our actual for our ideal identity; and to feel the 
pulse of our old transports revive very keenly, we must "jump'* 
all our present comforts and connections. Our romantic and 
itinerant character is not to be domesticated. Dr. Johnson 
remarked how little foreign travel added to the facilities of 
conversation in those who had been abroad. In fact, the time 
we have spent there is both delightful, and, in one sense, 
instructive; but it appears to be cut out of our substantial, 
downright existence, and never to join kindly on to it. We 
are not the same, but another, and perhaps more enviable indi- 
vidual, all the time we are out of our own country. We are 
lost to ourselves as well as our friends. So the poet some- 
what quaintly sings. 

Out of my country and myself I go. 

Those who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent 
themselves for a while from the ties and objects that recall 
them : but we can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place 
that gave us birth. I should on this account like well enough 
to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could 
anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home! 

50. BourbonB. The royal house of France. 



180 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 



THE FIGHTi 

. . . Reader^ have you ever seen a fight? If not, you have 
a pleasure to come, at least if it is a fight like that between the 
Gas-man and Bill Neate. The crowd was very great when we 
arrived on the spot; open carriages were coming up, with 
streamers flying and music playing, and the countiy-people 
were pouring in over hedge and ditch in all directions, to see 
their hero beat or be beaten. The odds were still on Gas, but 
only about five to four. GuUy^ had been down to try Neate, 
and had backed him considerably, which was a damper to the 
sanguine confidence of the adverse party. About two hundred 
thousand pounds were pending. The Gas says he has lost 
3000Z. which were promised him by different gentlemen if he 
had won. He had presumed too much on himself, which had 
made others presume on him. This spirited and formidable 
young fellow seems to have taken for his motto the old maxim 
that "there are three things necessary to success in life — Impu- 
dence! Impudence! Impudence!" It is so in matters of 
opinion, but not in the fancy ^^ which is the most practical of 
all things; though even here confidence is half the battle, but 
only half. Our friend ha*d vapored and swaggered too much, 
as if he wanted to grin and bully his adversary out of the fight. 
"Alas, the Bristol man was not so tamed!"* "This is the 
grave-digger," would Tom Hickman exclaim in the moments 
of intoxication from gin and success, showing his tremendous 

1. This essay was contributed to the New Monthly Magazine 
after Hazlitt's trip to the scene of the g^reat prize-fig-ht of Decem- 
ber 11, 1821, between Thomas Hickman (called "the Gas-man") 
and Bill Neate. The first portion, here omitted, describes the 
journey to Hung-erford, some sixty miles west of London. The 
whole composition is remarkable for Hazlitt's success in making 
a real work of art out of an unpromising subject; the critic 
Augustine Birrell says of it, "It is full of poetry, life, and 
motion. — Shakespeare, Hog-arth, and Nature/* 

2. Q-ully. A retired prize-fighter of considerable fame. 

3. the fancy. Long a popular term for the sport of pugilism, 
its representatives and its admirers. 

4. Alas, tlie Bristol man, etc. Adapted from a line in Cowper's 
poem The Task: "Alas, Leviathan is not so tamed." 






HAZLITT 181 

right hand; "this will send many of them to their long homes; 
I haven't done with them yet!" Why should he — though he 
had licked four of the best men within the hour, yet why 
should he threaten to inflict dishonorable chastisement on my 
old master Richmond,^ a veteran going off the stage, and who 
has borne his sable honors meekly? Magnanimity, my dear 
Tom, and bravery should be inseparable. Or why should he 
go up to his antagonist, the first time he ever saw him at the 
Fives Court, and measuring him from head to foot with a 
glance of contempt, as Achilles surveyed Hector, say to him, 
"What, are you Bill Neate? Pll knock more blood out of that 
great carcass of thine, this day fortnight, than you ever 
knocked out of a bullock's!" It was, not manly, 'twas not 
fighter-like. If he was sure of the victory (as he was not), the 
less said about it the better. Modesty should accompany the 
fancy as its shadow. The best men were always the best 
behaved. . . . Perhaps I press this point too much on a fallen 
man — Mr. Thomas Hickman has by this time learnt that first 
of all lessons, "that man was made to mourn."® He has lost 
nothing by the late fight but his presumption, and that every 
man may do as well without! By an over-display of this 
quality, however, the public had been prejudiced against him, 
and the "knowing ones" were taken in. Few but those who 
had bet on him wished Gas to win. With my own preposses- 
sions on the subject, the result of the 11th of December 
appeared to me as fine a piece of poetical justice as I had 
ever witnessed. The difference of weight between the two com- 
batants (fourteen stone to twelve)''' was nothing to the sporting 
men. Great heavy, clumsy, long-armed Bill Neate kicked the 
beam in the scale of the Gas-man's vanity. The amateurs 
were frightened at his big words, and thought that they 

5. Blclmiond. A negro pugilist and teacher of boxing. 

6. zuan was made to mourn. From Burns' s poem "A Dirge." 

7. fourteen stone to twelve. A stone, the English unit of 
weight measure, is equal to fourteen pounds. Hence this was a 
battle of heavy weig'hts, — 196 pounds to 168. 



182 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

would make up for the difference of six feet and fiye feet nine. 
Truly, the fancy are not men of imagination. They judge of 
what has been, and cannot conceive of anything that is to be. 
The Gas-man had won hitherto; therefore he must beat a man 
half as big again as himself — and that to a certainty. Besides, 
there are as many feuds, factions, prejudices, pedantic notions 
in the fancy as in the state or in the schools. Mr. Gully is 
almost the only cool, sensible man among them, who exercises 
an unbiased discretion, and is not a slave to his passions in 
these matters. 

But enough of reflections, and to our tale. The day, as I 
have said, was fine for a December morning. The grass was 
wet and the ground miry, and plowed up with multitudinous 
feet, except that within the ring itself there was a spot of 
virgin green closed in and unprof aned by vulgar tread, that 
shone with dazzling brightness in the mid-day sun. For it 
was now noon, and we had an hour to wait. This is the trying 
time. It is then the heart sickens, as you think what the 
two champions are about, and how short a time will determine 
their fate. After the first blow is struck, there is no oppor- 
tunity for nervous apprehensions ; you are swallowed up in the 
immediate interest of the scene; but 

Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
And the first motion, all the interim is 
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.s 

I found it so, as I felt the sun's rays clinging to my back, 
and saw the white wintry clouds sink below the verge of the 
horizon. "So, I thought, my fairest hopes have faded from 
my sight! — so will the Gas-man's glory, or that of his adver- 
sary, vanish in an hour." The "swells" were parading in their 
white box-coats, the outer ring was cleared with some bruises 
on the heads and shins of the rustic assembly (for the Cock- 
neys® had been distanced by the sixty-six miles) ; the time 

8. Between tlie actingr, etc. From Julius Caesar, II, 1. 

9. Cockneys. Londoners. 



HAZLITT 183 

drew near, I had got a good stand. A bustle, a buzz, ran 
through the crowd, and from the opposite side entered Neate, 
between his second and bottle-holder. He rolled along, swathed 
in his loose greatcoat, his knock-knees bending under his huge 
bulk, and, with a modest cheerful air, threw his hat into the 
ring. He then just looked round, and began quietly to 
undress; when from the other side there was a similar rush 
and an opening made, and the Gas-man came forward with a 
conscious air of anticipated triumph, too much like the cock- 
of-the-walk. He strutted about more than becomes a hero, 
sucked oranges with a supercilious air, and threw away the 
skin with a toss of his head, and went up and looked at Neate, 
which was an act of supererogation. The only sensible thing 
he did was, as he strode away from the modern Ajax,^® to fling 
out his arms, as if he wanted to try whether they would do 
their work that day. By this time they had stripped, and 
presented a strong contrast in appearance. If Neate was 
like Ajax, "with Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear"^^ the pugil- 
istic reputation of all Bristol, Hickman might be compared 
to Diomed,^^ light, vigorous, elastic ; and his back glistened 
in the sun, as he moved about, like a panther's hide. There 
was now a dead pause — attention was awestruck. Who at 
that moment, big with a great event, did not draw his breath 
short — did not feel his heart throb? All was ready. They 
tossed up for the sun, and the Gas-man won. They were 
led up to the "scratch,'' shook hands, and went at it. 

In the first round every one thought it was all over. After 
making play a short time, the Gas-man flew at his adversary 
like a tiger, struck five blows in as many seconds, — three first, 
and then, following him as he staggered back, two more, right 
and left, and down he fell, a mighty ruin. There was a shout, 

10. Ajaz. The Greek warrior, in the Trojan War, of grreatest 
size and strength, 

11. wltli Atlantean sliOTilders, etc. With shoulders equal to 
those of Atlas the earth-bearer; from Paradise Lost, Book II. 

12. Diomed. Another of the Greek warriors at Troy; he helped 
Ulysses carry off the horses of Rhesus. 



184 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

and I said, "There is no standing this." Neate seemed like a 
lifeless lump of flesh and bone, round which the Gas-man's 
blows played with the rapidity of electricity or lightning, and 
you imagined he would only be lifted up to be knocked down 
again. It was as if Hickman held a sword or a fire in that 
right hand of his, and directed it against an unarmed body. 
They met again, and Neate seemed, not cowed, but particularly 
cautious. I saw his teeth clenched together, and his brows 
knit close against the sun. He held out both his arms at full 
length straight before him, like two sledge-hammers, and raised 
his left an inch or two higher. The Gas-man could not get 
over this guard — they struck mutually, and fell, but without 
advantage on either side. It was the same in the next round; 
but the balance of power was thus restored — ^the fate of the 
battle was suspended. No one could tell how it would end. 
This was the only moment in which opinion was divided; for 
in the next, the Gas-man aiming a mortal blow at his adver- 
sary's neck with his right hand, and failing from the length 
he had to reach, the other returned it with his left at full 
swing, planted a tremendous blow on his cheek-bone and 
eyebrow, and made a red ruin of that side of his face. The 
Gas-man went down, and there was another shout — a roar 
of triumph and the waves of fortune rolled tumultuously 
from side to side. This was a settler. Hickman got up, and 
"grinned horrible a ghastly smile,"^^ yet he was evidently 
dashed in his opinion of himself; it was the first time he had 
ever been so punished; all one side of his face was perfect 
scarlet, and his right eye was closed in dingy blackness, as he 
advanced to the fight, less confident, but still determined. 
After one or two rounds, not receiving another such remem- 
brancer, he rallied and went at it with his former impetuosity. 
But in vain. His strength had been weakened, — ^his blows 
could not tell at such a distance, — he was obliged to fling 
himself at his adversary, and could not strike from his feet; 

13. grinned horrible, etc. Said of Death in Paradise Lost, Book II. 



)' HAZLITT 185 

t and almost as regularly as he flew at him with his right hand, 

I Neate warded the blow, or drew back out of its reach, and 

? i felled him with the return of his left. There was little cautious 

; sparring — no half -hits — no tapping and trifling, none of the 

I petit-maitre-shiip'^^ of the art — they were almost all knock- 

I down blows ; the fight was a good stand-up fight. The wonder 

i was the half-minute time. If there had been a minute or more 

[ allowed between each round, it would have been intelligible 

\ how they should by degrees recover strength and resolution; 

1 but to see two men smashed to the ground, smeared with gore, 

stunned, senseless, the breath beaten out of their bodies, — 

and then, before you recover from the shock, to see them rise 

;, up with new strength and courage, stand ready to inflict or 

receive mortal offense, and rush upon each other ^Qike two 

clouds over the Caspian"^^ — this is the most astonishing thing 

of all, — this is the high and heroic state of man ! 

From this time forward the event became more certain 
every round, and about the twelfth it seemed as if it must have 
been over. Hickman generally stood with his back to me; but 
in the scuffle he had changed positions, and Neate just then 
made a tremendous lunge at him, and hit him full in the face. 
It was doubtful whether he would fall backwards or forwards ; 
he hung suspended for a second or two, and then fell back, 
throwing his hands in the air, and with his face lifted up to the 
sky. I never saw anything more terrific than his aspect just 
before he fell. All traces of life, of natural expression, were 
gone from him. His face was like a human skull, a death's- 
head, spouting blood. The eyes were filled with blood, the nose 
streamed with blood, the mouth gaped blood. He was not like 
an actual man, but like a preternatural, spectral appearance, 
or like one of the figures in Dante's Inferno}^ Yet he fought 
on after this for several rounds, still striking the first desper- 

14. petit-maitre-sliip. Coxcombry, daintiness (from petit-maitre, 
a dandy). 

15. like two clouds, etc. From Paradise Lost, Book II. 

16. Xnlemo. Hell; the first part of the Divine Comedy. 



186 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

ate blow, and Neate standing on the defensive, and using the 
same cautious guard to the last, as if he had still all his work 
to do; and it was not till the Gas-man was so stunned in the 
seventeenth or eighteenth round, that his senses forsook him, 
and he could not come to time, that the battle was declared 
over.* Ye who despise the fancy y do something to show 
as much pluck or as much self-possession as this, before 
you assume a superiority which you have never given a 
single proof of by any one action in the whole course of your 
lives ! 

When the Gas-man came to himself, the first words he 
uttered were, "Where am I? What is the matter?" "Nothing 
is the matter, Tom, — you have lost the battle, but you are the 
bravest man alive/' And Jackson whispered to him, "I am 
collecting a purse for you, Tom." Vain sounds, and unheard 
at that moment ! Neate instantly went up and shook him cor- 
dially by the hand, and seeing some old acquaintance, began 
to flourish with his fists, calling out, "Ah, you always said I 
couldn't fight — ^what do you think now?" But all in good 
humor, and without any appearance of arrogance; only it was 
evident Bill Neate was pleased that he had won the fight. 
When it was over, I asked Cribb if he did not think it was a 
good one. He said, "Pretty well!" The carrier-pigeons now 
mounted into the air, and one of them flew with the news of 
her husband's victory to the bosom of Mrs. Neate. Alas for 
Mrs. Hickman! 

Mais au revoir^^'^ as Sir Fopling Flutter says. I went down 



♦Scrog'g'ins said of the Gas-man that he thought he was a man 
of that courage, that if his hands were cut off he would still 
fight on with the stumps — like that of Widrington — 

In doleful dumps, 
Who, when his legs were smitten off, 
Still fought upon his stumps. 

[Hazlitt's note. Scroggins was a well-known pugilist; Wid- 
rington a warrior celebrated in the ballad of "Chevy Chase," 
from which the lines are quoted.] 

17. Mais au revoir. But to return. On Sir Popling' Flutter, see 
note above, page 176. 



HAZLITT 187 

with Toms;^® I returned with Jack Pigott/^ whom I met on the 
ground. Toms is a rattlebrain, Pigott is a sentimentalist. 
Now, under favor, I am a sentimentalist too, — therefore I say 
nothing but that the interest of the excursion did not flag as I 
came back. Pigott and I marched along the causeway leading 
from Hungerford to Newbury, now observing the effect of a 
brilliant sun on the tawny meads or moss-colored cottages, 
now exulting in the fight, now digressing to some topic of 
general and elegant literature. My friend was dressed in 
character for the occasion, or like one of the fancy; that is, 
with a double portion of greatcoats, clogs, and overhauls; and 
just as we had agreed with a couple of country lads to carry 
his superfluous wearing apparel to the next town,* we were 
overtaken by a return post-chaise, into which I got, Pigott 
preferring a seat on the bar.^^ There were two strangers 
already in the chaise, and on their observing they supposed I 
had been to the fight, I said I had, and concluded they had 
done the same. They appeared, however, a little shy and sore 
on the subject, and it was not till after several hints dropped, 
and questions put, that it turned out that they had missed it. 
One of these friends had undertaken to drive the other there 
in his gig; they had set out, to make sure work, the day 
before at three in the afternoon. The owner of the one-horse 
vehicle scorned to ask his way, and drove right on to Bagshot, 
instead of turning off at Hounslow; there they stopped all 
night, and set off the next day across the country to Reading, 
from whence they took coach, and got down within a mile or 
two of Hungerford, just half an hour after the fight was over. 
This might be safely set down as one of the miseries of human 
life. We parted with these two gentlemen who had been to 
see the fight but had returned as they went, at Wolhampton, 

18. Toms. Joseph Parkes, a London friend of Hazlitt's, and 
his companion on this holiday. 

19. Jack Pigott. P. G. Patmore, another friend, who in a 
volume of reminiscences describes this same fight and the jour- 
ney homeward. 

20. on tlie bar. With the driver. 



188 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

where we were promised beds (an irresistible temptation, for 
Pigott had passed the preceding night at Hungerf ord as we had 
done at Newbury), and we turned into an old bow -windowed 
parlor with a carpet and a snug fire; and, after devouring a 
quantity of tea, toast, and eggs, sat down to consider, during 
an hour of philosophic leisure, what we should have for supper. 
. . . The next morning we rose refreshed; and on observing 
that Jack had a pocket volume in his hand, in which he read 
in the intervals of our discourse, I inquired what it was, and 
learned to my particular satisfaction that it was a volume of 
the New Eloise-^^ Ladies, after this will you contend that a 
love for the fancy is incompatible with the cultivation of senti- 
ment? 

We jogged on as before, my friend setting me up in a gen- 
teel drab greatcoat and green silk handkerchief (which I must 
say became me exceedingly), and after stretching our legs 
for a few miles, and seeing Jack Randall, Ned Turner, and 
Scroggins pass on the top of one of the Bath coaches, we 
engaged with^the driver of the second to take us to London for 
the usual fee. I got inside, and found three other passengers. 
One of them was an old gentleman with an aquiline nose, 
powdered hair, and a pigtail, and who looked as if he had 
played many a rubber at the Bath rooms.^^ I said to myself, 
he is veiy like Mr. Windham ;^^ I wish he would enter into 
conversation, that I might hear what fine observations would 
come from those finely turned features. However, nothing 
passed, till, stopping to dine at Reading, some inquiry was 
made by the company about the fight, and I gave (as the 
reader may believe) an eloquent and animated description of it. 
When we got into the coach again, the old gentleman, after a 
graceful exordium, said he had when a boy been to a fight 

21. New Eloise. See note above, page 174. 

22. tlie Bath rooms. Famous pleasure-rooms at Bath, the most 
brilliant watering-place of eighteenth century England. 

23. Mr. Windham. William Windham (1750-1810), a prominent 
parliamentary statesman of the Georgian era, distinguished 
incidentally for his fine appearance and his love of sport. 



HAZLITT 189 

between the famous Broughton and George Stevenson, who 
was called the "Fighting Coachman/' in the year 1770,2^ with 
the late Mr. Windham. This beginning flattered the spirit of 
prophecy within me, and riveted my attention. He went on: 
"George Stevenson was coachman to a friend of my father's. 
He took hold of his own arm and said, ^there was muscle here 
once, but now it is no more than this young gentleman's.' He 
added, ^Well, no matter; I have been here long, I am willing 
to go hence, and I hope I have done no more harm than another 
man.' Once," said my unknown companion, "I asked him if 
he ever beat Broughton? He said Yes; that he had fought 
with him three times, and the last time he fairly beat him, 
though the world did not allow it. *I'll tell you how it was, 
master. When the seconds lifted us up in the last round, we 
were so exhausted that neither of us could stand, and we fell 
upon one another, and as Master Broughton fell uppermost, 
the mob gave it in his favor, and he was said to have won the 
battle. But,' says he, 'the fact was that as his second (John 
Cuthbert) lifted him up, he said to him, "I'll fight no more, 
I've had enough"; which,' says Stevenson, 'you know gave me 
the victory. And to prove to you that that was the case, when 
John Cuthbert was on his death-bed, and they asked him if 
there was anything on his mind which he wished to confess, 
he answered Yes, that there was one thing he wished to set 
right, for that certainly Master Stevenson won that last fight 
with Master Broughton; for he whispered him as he lifted 
him up in the last round of all, that he had had enough.' 
This," said the Bath gentleman, "was a bit of human nature" ; 
and I have written this account of the fight on purpose that 
it might not be lost to the world. He also stated, as a proof 
of the candor of mind in this class of men, that Stevenson 
acknowledged that Broughton could have beat him in his best 
day, but that he (Broughton) was getting old in their last 

24. the year 1770. Unfortunately for the accuracy of the old 
gentleman's story, this fight took place in the year 1741. 



190 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

rencounter. When we stopped in Piccadilly, I wanted to ask 
the gentleman some questions about the late Mr. Windham, 
but had not courage. I got out, resigned my coat and green 
silk handkerchief to Pigott( loath to part with these ornaments 
of life), and walked home in high spirits. 

P. S. Toms called upon me the next day, to ask me if I did 
not think the fight was a complete thing. I said I thought it 
was. I hope he will relish my account of it. 

SIR WALTER SCOTT^ 

. . . Sir Walter has found out (0 rare discovery!) that 
facts are better than fiction; that there is no romance like the 
romance of real life; and that if we can but arrive at what 
men feel, do, and say in striking and singular situations, the 
result will be "more lively, audible, and full of vent,"^ than 
the fine-spun cobwebs of the brain. With reverence be it 
spoken, he is like the man who, having to imitate the squeak- 
ing of a pig upon the stage, brought the animal under his coat 
with him. Our author has conjured up the actual people he 
has to deal with, or as much as he could get of them, in "their 
habits as they lived/'^ He has ransacked old chronicles, and 
poured the contents upon his page ; he has squeezed out musty 
records; he has consulted wayfaring pilgrims, bed-rid sibyls; 
he has invoked the spirits of the air; he has conversed with 
the living and the dead, and let them tell their story their own 
way; and by borrowing of others, has enriched his own genius 

1. This essay, of which only a part is reprinted here, is one 
of a number of extraordinarily vivid and frank sketches of his 
contemporaries, which Hazlitt published (anonymously) in 1825, 
with the title The Spirit of the Age. It is an interesting" example of 
his combined literary and social- criticism; Hazlitt greatly 
admired Scott as a novelist, but hated his political conservatism, 
and had been made freshly indignant by some notes which Sir 
Walter had recently added to new editions of his novels, depre- 
cating the radical movement and expressing the hope that his 
own writlng-s had done something "to revive the declining- spirit 
of loyalty" to British institutions (see page 194.) 

2. more lively, etc. From Shakespeare's Coriolanus, IV, v. 

3. liabits as tliey lived. Ftom Hamlet, III, iv. "Habits" means 
garments. 



HAZLITT 191 

with everlasting variety, truth, and freedom. He has taken 
his materials from the original, authentic sources, in large 
concrete masses, and not tampered with or too much frittered 
them away. He is only the amanuensis of truth and history. 
It is impossible to say how fine his writings in consequence 
are, unless we could describe how fine nature is. All that 
portion of the history of his country that he has touched upon 
(wide as the scope is), the manners, the personages, the events, 
the scenery, lives over again in his volumes. Nothing is 
wanting — the illusion is complete. There is a hurtling in the 
air, a trampling of feet upon the ground, as these perfect 
representations of human character or fanciful belief come 
thronging back upon our imaginations. We will merely recall 
a few of the subjects of his pencil to the reader's recollection; 
for nothing we could add, by way of note or commendation, 
could make the impression more vivid. 

There is — first and foremost, because the earliest of our 
acquaintance — the Baron of Bradwardine,* stately, kind- 
hearted, whimsical, pedantic; and Flora Maclvor (whom even 
we forgive for her Jacobitism), the fierce Vich Ian Vohr, and 
Evan Dhu, constant in death, and Davie Gellatly roasting his 
eggs or turning his rhymes with restless volubility, and the two 
stag-hounds that met Waverley, as fine as ever Titian painted, 
or Paul Veronese;^ — then there is old Balfour of Burley,® 
brandishing his sword and his Bible with fire-eyed fury, trying 
a fall with the insolent, gigantic Bothwell at the 'Change-house, 
and vanquishing him at the noble battle of Loudon Hill ; there 
is Bothwell himself, drawn to the life, proud, cruel, selfish 
profligate, but with the love-letters of the gentle Alice, written 
thirty years before, and his verses to her memory, found in 

4. Baron of Bradwardine. This and the other characters, 
throug-h Davie Gellatly, are from Waverley, the romance that g"ave 
the name to the whole series. 

5. Titian . . . Paul Veronese. Italian painters of the six- 
teenth century. 

6. Balfour of Burley. A partially historical character, in the 
novel Cld Mortality. 



192 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

his pocket after his death; in the same volume of Old Mortality 
is that lone figure, like a figure in Scripture, of the woman 
sitting on the stone at the turning to the mountain, to warn 
Burley that there is a lion in his path ; and the fawning Claver- 
house, beautiful as a panther, smooth-looking, blood-spotted; 
and the fanatics, Macbriar and Mucklewrath, crazed with zeal 
and sufferings; and the inflexible Morton, and the faithful 
Edith, who refused to "give her hand to another while her 
heart was with her lover in the deep and dead sea." And in 
The Heart of Midlothian we have Effie Deans, that sweet, 
faded flower, and Jeanie, her more than sister, and old David 
Deans, the patriarch of St. Leonard's Crags, and Butler, and 
Dumbiedikes, eloquent in his silence, and Mr. Bartoline Saddle- 
tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous swinging in the 
wind, and Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her 
ghastly mother. Again, there is Meg Merrilies,'^ standing on 
her rock, stretched on her bier with "her head to the east," 
and Dirk Hatterick (equal to Shakespeare's Master Barn- 
ardine^), and Glossin, the soul of an attorney, and Dandy 
Dinmont, with his terrier-pack and his pony Dumple, and the 
fiery Colonel Mannering, and the modish old counselor Pley- 
dell, and Dominie Sampson,* and Rob Roy^^ like the eagle in 
his eyry, and Baillie Nicol Jarvie, and the inimitable Major 
Galbraith, and Rashleigh Osbaldistone, and Die Vernon, the 
best of secret-keepers; and in The Antiquary the ingenious 
and abstruse Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, and the old beadsman^^ 
Edie Ochiltree, and that preternatural figure of old Edith 



♦Perhaps the finest scene in all these novels is that where the 
Dominie meets his pupil, Miss Lucy, the morning after her 
brother's arrival. [Hazlitt's note.] 

7. Meg" Merrilies. A g"ypsy woman In Guy Mannering; the fol- 
lowing characters, through Dominie Sampson, are in the same 
novel. 

8. Master Bamardine. In Measure for Measure. 

9. Rob Boy. In the novel of the same name; so with the four 
following characters. 

10. Ijeadsman. One dependent on alms. 



HAZLITT 193 

Elspeth, a living shadow, in whom the lamp of life had been^^ 
long extinguished, had it not been fed by remorse and "thick- 
coming^'^^ recollections, and that striking picture of the effects 
of feudal tyranny and fiendish pride, the unhappy Earl of 
Glenallan; and the Black Dwarf, ^^ and his friend Habby of 
the Heughfoot, the cheerful hunter, and his cousin Grace 
Armstrong, fresh and laughing like the morning; and the 
"Children of the Mist,"^* and the baying of the bloodhound 
that tracks their steps at a distance (the hollow echoes are in 
our ears now) ; and Amy and her hapless love, the villain 
Varney,^^ and the deep voice of George of Douglas^^ — and 
the immovable Balafre, and Master Oliver the barber, in 
Quentin Durward — and the quaint humor of The Fortunes of 
Nigel, and the comic spirit of Peveril of the Peak — and the 
fine old English romance of Ivanhoe, What a list of names ! 
What a host of associations! What a thing is human life! 
What a power is that of genius! What a world of thought 
and feeling is thus rescued from oblivion ! How many hours 
of heartfelt satisfaction has our author given to the gay and 
thoughtless! How many sad hearts has he soothed in pain 
and solitude! It is no wonder that the public repay with 
lengthened applause and gratitude the pleasure they receive. 
He writes as fast as they can read, and he does not write 
himself down. He is always in the public eye, and we do not 
tire of him. His worst is better than any other person's 
best. His backgrounds (and his later works are little else but 
backgrounds capitally made out) are more attractive than the 
principal figures and most complicated actions of other writers. 
His works, taken together, are almost like a new edition of 
human nature. This is indeed to be an author! 

11. had been. Would have been. 

12. tMck-coming'. A Shakespearean phrase {Macbeth, V, iii). 

13. tlie Black Dwarf. In the novel of the same name. 

14. Cliildren of tlie Mist. In The Legend of Montrose. 

15. Amy . . . the villain Varney. In Kenilworth. 

16. Georgre of Dougflas. In The Abbot. 



194 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

The political bearing of the Scotch Novels has been a con- 
siderable recommendation to them. They are a relief to the 
mind, rarefied as it has been with modern philosophy and 
heated with ultra-radicalism. At a time, also, when we bid 
fair to revive the principles of the Stuarts,^''' it is interesting 
to bring us acquainted with their persons and misfortunes. 
The candor of Sir Walter's historic pen levels our bristling 
prejudices on this score, and sees fair play between Round- 
heads and Cavaliers, between Protestant and Papist. He is a 
writer reconciling all the diversities of human nature to the 
reader. He does not enter into the distinctions of hostile 
sects or parties, but treats of the strength or the infirmity of 
the human mind, of the virtues or vices of the human breast, 
as they are to be found blended in the whole race of mankind. 
Nothing can show more handsomely or be more gallantly 
executed. There was a talk at one time that our author was 
about to take Guy Faux^^ for the subject of one of his novels, 
in order to put a more liberal and humane construction on 
the Gunpowder Plot than our "No Popery" prejudices have 
hitherto permitted. Sir Walter is a professed "clarifier'' of 
the age from the vulgar and still lurking old English antipathy 
to Popery and slavery. Through some odd process of servile 
logic, it should seem that, in restoring the claims of the Stuarts 
by the courtesy of romance, the House of Brunswick are more 
firmly seated in point of fact, and the Bourbons, by collateral 
reasoning, become legitimate ! In any other point of view we 
cannot possibly conceive how Sir Walter imagines "he has 
done something to revive the declining spirit of loyalty"^® 

17. tbe Stuarts. The royal family driven from the throne by 
the Revolution of 1688. Hazlitt views their absolutism as in 
some sense revived by the Tory reaction following- the era 
of the French Revolution. Scott was notoriously somewhat 
tender-hearted toward the house of Stuart. 

18. Q-ny Faux. The chief agent of the conspirators in the 
"Gunpowder Plot" of 1605, which was designed to destroy the 
Houses of Parliament in revenge for the laws directed against 
Homan Catholics. The name is more commonly spelled Fawkes. 

19. lie has done sometliinfir, etc. See note on pag-e 190. 



HAZLITT 195 

by these novels. His loyalty is founded on would-be treason; 
he props the actual throne by the shadow of rebellion. Does 
he really think of making us enamoured of the "good old 
times'' by the faithful and harrowing portraits he has drawn 
of them? Would he carry us back to the early stages of 
barbarism, of clanship, of the feudal system, as "a consum- 
mation devoutly to be wished" P^ Is he infatuated enough, or 
does he so dote and drivel over his own slothful and self- 
willed prejudices, as to believe that he will make a single 
convert to the beauty of Legitimacy,^^ — that is, of lawless 
power and savage bigotry, — when he himself is obliged to 
apologize for the horrors he describes, and even render his 
descriptions credible to the modern reader by referring to 
the authentic history of these delectable times'? He is indeed 
so besotted as to the moral of his own story, that he has even 
the blindness to go out of his way to have a fling at "flints'^ 
and "dungs"22 (the contemptible ingredients, as he would have 
us believe, of a modern rabble), at the very time when he is 
describing a mob of the twelfth century — a mob, one should 
think, after the writer's own heart, without one particle of 
modern philosophy or revolutionary politics in their com- 
position, who were to a man, to a hair, just what priests and 
kings and nobles let them be, and who were collected to witness 
(a spectacle proper to the times) the burning of the lovely 
Rebecca at a stake for a sorceress, because she was a Jewess, 
beautiful and innocent, and the consequent victim of insane 
bigotry and unbridled profligacy. And it is at this moment 
(when the heart is kindled and bursting with indignation at 
the revolting abuses of self -constituted power), that Sir 

20. a consTunmation, etc. From Hamlet, III, i. 

21. Legitimacy. The doctrine of the hereditary rig-ht of the 
existing royal governments. 

22. flints, etc. Hazlitt is alluding to the opening paragraph 
of the 43rd chapter of Ivanhoe, where apropos of the crowd gath- 
ered to witness the combat which was to decide the fate of 
Rebeccat, Scott contemptuously refers to mobs of "our own 
days," who gather to see "whether the heroes of the day are, in 
the heroic langnage of insurg'ent tailors, flints or dunghills." 



196 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

Walter "stops the press'' to have a sneer at the people, and 
to put a spoke — as he thinks — in the wheel of upstart innova- 
tion ! This is what he "calls backing his f riends"^^ — it is thus 
he administers charms and philters to our love of Legitimacy, 
makes us conceive a horror of all reform, civil, political, or 
religious, and would fain put down the Spirit of the Age. 
The author of Waverleij might just as well get up and make a 
speech at a dinner at Edinburgh, abusing Mr. MacAdam^^ 
for his improvements in the roads, on the ground that they 
were nearly impassable in many places "sixty years sinee,''^^ 
or object to Mr. Peel's Police BilP^ by insisting that 
Hounslow Heath^^ was formerly a scene of greater interest 
and terror to highwaymen and travelers, and cut a greater 
figure in the Newgate Calendar^^ than it does at present. 

Oh ! Wickliff,29 Luther, Hampden, Sidney, Somers, mistaken 
Whigs and thoughtless reformers in religion and politics, and 
all ye, whether poets or philosophers, heroes or sages, inventprs 
of arts or sciences, patriots, benefactors of the human race, 
enlighten ers and ci\dlizers of the world, who have (so far) 

23. calls tacMag', etc. A phrase of Palstaff's, in Henry Fourth, 
Part I, II, iv. 

24. Mr. MacAdam. A Scotchman (1756-1836) who devoted him- 
self to the study of road-making-, and from whose name, in con- 
sequence, the term "macadamise" was formed. 

25. sixty years since. " 'Tis Sixty Years Since" was the sub- 
title of IVaverley. 

26. Mr. Peel's Police BilL Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850) planned 
the system of police for the metropolitan district of London, 
established by a law of 1829. 

27. Hotmslow Heatli. An open region west of London, near an 
important coaching center, and notorious as the resort of high- 
waymen. 

28. Newg-ate Calendar. A record of the most important crim- 
inals confined in Newgate prison. 

29. Wickliff, etc. These names are those of reformers who in 
their time came into conflict with established authority; Wick- 
liff with the ecclesiastical authorities of the fourteenth century, 
when he undertook to translate the Bible into English; Hampden 
and Sidney with Charles the First, in the days of the Parlia- 
mentary AVars; Somers with James the Second, in the days of 
the Revolution of 1688. The paragraph that follows is one of 
the finest specimens of Hazlitt's prose eloquence; and it should 
be noted how cleverly he draws his series of examples of out- 
worn tyranny from incidents in Scott's own stories. 



HAZLITT 197 

reduced opinion to reason, and power to law, who are the 
cause that we no longer burn witches and heretics at slow 
fires, that the thumbscrews are no longer applied by ghastly, 
smiling judges, to extort confession of imputed crimes from 
sufferers for conscience's sake, — that men are no longer strung 
up like acorns on trees without judge or jury, or hunted like 
wild beasts through thickets and glens, — who have abated the 
cruelty of priests, the pride of nobles, the divinity of kings 
in former times, — to whom we owe it that we no longer wear 
round our necks the collar of Gurth the swineherd and of 
Wamba^^ the jester; that the castles of gTeat lords are no 
longer the dens of banditti, from whence they issue with fire 
and sword to lay waste the land; that we no longer expire in 
loathsome dungeons without knowing the cause, or have our 
right hands struck off for raising them in self-defense against 
wanton insult; that we can sleep without fear of being burnt 
in our beds, or travel without making our wills; that no 
Amy Robsarts^^ are thrown down trap-doors by Richard 
Varneys with impunity; that no Red Reiver^^ of Westbum 
Flat sets fire to peaceful cottages; that no Claverhouse^^ 
signs cold-blooded death-warrants in sport; that we have no 
Tristan the Hermit, or Petit-Andre,^^ crawling near us, like 
spiders, and making our flesh creep and our hearts sicken, at 
every moment of our lives; — ^ye who have produced this 
change in the face of nature and society, return to earth once 
more, and beg pardon of Sir Walter and his patrons, who 
sigh at not being able to undo all that 3'ou have done ! . . . 



30. Gnrth . . . Wamba, The thrall and the jester of Cedrio 
the Saxon, in Ivanhoe. The following- clause, on the castles of 
great lords, alludes to the same novel. 

31. Amy ItoTbsart. In KenilwortJu 

32. Red Reiver. In The Black Dwarf. 

33. Claverliouse, In Old Mortality, 

34. Tristan . . . Petit- Andre. In Quentin Durzi'ard. 



198 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

ON THE CONVERSATION OF AUTHORS^ 

The conversation of authors is not so good as might be 
imagined; but, such as it is (and with rare exceptions) it is 
better than any other. The proof of which is, that when you 
are used to it you cannot put up with any other. That of 
mixed company becomes utterly intolerable — you cannot sit 
out a common tea and card party, at least if they pretend to 
talk at all. You are obliged in despair to cut all your old 
acquaintance who are not au fait^ on the prevailing and most 
smartly contested topics, who are not imbued with the high 
gusto of criticism and virtu.^ You cannot bear to hear a 
friend whom you have not seen for many years tell at how 
much a yard he sells his laces and tapes, when he means to 
move into his next house, when he heard last from his relations 
in the country, whether trade is alive or dead, or whether Mr. 
Such-a-one gets to look old. This sort of neighborly gossip 
will not go down after the high-raised tone of literary con- 
versation. The last may be very absurd, very unsatisfactory, 
and full of turbulence and heart-burning; but it has a zest 
in it which more ordinary topics of news or family-affairs 
do not supply. 

Neither will the conversation of what we understand by 
gentlemen and men of fashion do after that of men of letters. 
It is flat, insipid, stale, and unprofitable, in the comparison. 
They talk about much the same things, — pictures, poetry, 
politics, plays; but they do it worse, and at a sort of vapid 
second-hand. They, in fact, talk out of newspapers and 
magazines what we write there. They do not feel the same 
interest in the subjects they afect to handle with an air of 
fashionable condescension, nor have they the same knowledge 

1. Two essays under this title, the second immediately con- 
tinuing the first, are included in the collection called The Plain 
Speaker. The present selection omits the first portion of the first 
«ssay and the latter portion of the second. 

2. an fait. Fashionably informed. 

3. virtu. Esthetics. * 



HAZLITT 199 

of them, if they were ever so much in earnest in displaying it. 
If it were not for the wine and the dessert, no author in his 
senses would accept an invitation to a well-dressed dinner 
party, except out of pure good nature and unwillingness to 
disoblige by his refusal. Persons in high life talk almost 
entirely by rote. There are certain established modes of 
address, and certain answers to them expected as a matter of 
course, as a point of etiquette. The studied forms of polite- 
ness do not give the greatest possible scope to an exuberance 
of wit or fancy. The fear of giving offense destroys sincerity, 
and without sincerity there can be no true enjoyment of 
society, nor unfettered exertion of intellectual activity. Those 
who have been accustomed to live with the great are hardly 
considered as conversible persons in literary society. They 
are not to be talked with, any more than puppets or echoes. 
They have no opinions but what will please ; and you naturally 
turn away, as a waste of time and words, from attending to a 
person who just before assented to what you said, and yrh^oni 
you find, the moment after, from something that unexpectedly 
or perhaps by design drops from him, to be of a totally 
different way of thinking. This bush-fighting is not regarded 
as fair play among scientific men. 

As fashionable conversation is a sacrifice to politeness, so 
the conversation of low life is nothing but rudeness. They 
contradict you without giving a reason, or if they do, it is a 
very bad one, — swear, talk loud, repeat the same thing fifty 
times over, get to calling names, and from words proceed to 
blows. You cannot make companions of servants, or persons 
in an inferior station in life. You may talk to them on 
matters of business, and what they have to do for you (as 
lords talk to bruisers on subjects of fancy, "^ or country squires 
to their grooms on horse-racing), but out of that narrow 
sphere to any general topic you cannot lead them; the con- 
versation soon flags, and you go back to the old question, 

4. fancy. See note above, page 180. 



200 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

or are obliged to break up the sitting for want of ideas in 
common. 

The conversation of authors is better than that of most 
professions. It is better than that of lawyers, who tall: 
nothing but double entendre;^ than that of physicians, who 
talk of the approaching deaths of the College,^ or the mar- 
riage of some new practitioner with some rich widow; than 
that of divines, who talk of the last place they dined at; 
than that of university men, who make stale puns, repeat the 
refuse of the London newspapers, and affect an ignorance 
of Greek and mathematics; it is better than that of players, 
who talk of nothing but the green-room, and rehearse the 
scholar, the wit, or the fine gentleman, like a part on the 
stage; or than that of ladies, who, whatever you talk of, 
think of nothing, and expect you to think of nothing, but 
themselves. It is not easy to keep up a conversation with 
women in company. It is thought a piece of rudeness to 
differ from them ; it is not quite fair to ask them a reason for 
what they say. You are afraid of pressing too hard upon 
them; but where you cannot differ openly and unreservedly, 
you cannot heartily agree. It is not so in France. There the 
women talk of things in general, and reason better than the 
men in this country. They are mistresses of the intellectual 
foils. They are adepts in all the topics. They know what 
is to be said for and against all sorts of questions, and are 
lively and full of mischief into the bargain. They are very 
subtle. They put you to your trumps immediately. Your 
logic is more in requisition even than your gallantry. You 
must argue as well as bow yourself into the good graces of 
these modern Amazons. What a situation for an Englishman 
to be placed in!. 

The fault of literary conversation in general is its too great 

5. donlrle entendre. Vulgar witticisms based on double or 
concealed meanings of words. 

6. tlie Collesre. The College of Physicians, the professional 
society. 



HAZLITT 201 

tenaciousness. It fastens upon a subject, and will not let it 
go. It resembles a battle rather than a skirmish, and makes 
a toil of a pleasure. Perhaps it does this from necessity, 
from a consciousness of wanting the more familiar graces, 
the power to sport and trifle, to touch lightly and adorn 
agreeably, every view or turn of a question en passant,'' as 
it arises. Those who have a reputation to lose are too ambi- 
tious of shining to please. "To excel in conversation," said 
an ingenious man, "one must not be always striving to say 
good things; to say one good thing, one must say many bad, 
and more indifferent ones." This desire to shine without the 
means at hand often makes men silent: 

The fear of being silent strikes us dumb.s 

A writer who has been accustomed to take a connected view 
of a difficult question, and to work it out gradually in all its 
bearings, may be very deficient in that quickness and ease 
which men of the world, who are in the habit of hearing a 
variety of opinions, — who pick up an observation on one 
subject, and another on another, and who care about none 
any farther than the passing away of an idle hour, — usually 
acquire. An author has studied a particular point — he has 
read, he has' inquired, he has thought a great deal upon it; 
he is not contented to take it up casually in common with 
others, to throw out a hint, to propose an objection: he will 
either remain silent, uneasy, and dissatisfied, or he will begin 
at the beginning and go through with it to the end. He is 
for taking the whole responsibility upon himself. He would 
be thought to understand the subject better than others, or 
indeed would show that nobody else knows anything about it. 
There are always three or four points on which the literary 
novice, at his first outset in life, fancies he can enlighten 
eveiy company, and bear down all opposition; but he is 

7. en passant. In passing. 

8. Tlie fear of, etc. Misquoted from Cowper's poem "Con- 
versation"; Cowper says, "makes us mute." 



202 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

cured of this quixotic and pugnacious spirit as he goes more 
into the world, where he finds that there are other opinions 
and other pretensions to be adjusted besides his own. When 
this asperity wears off, and a certain scholastic precocity is 
mellowed down, the conversation of men of letters becomes 
both interesting and instructive. . . . 

The soul of conversation is sympathy. Authors should 
converse chiefly with authors, and their talk should be of 
books. "When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of 
war."^ There is nothing so pedantic as pretending not to be 
pedantic. No man can get above his pursuit in life; it is 
getting above himself, which is impossible. There is a free- 
masonry in all things. You can only speak to be understood; 
but this you cannot be, except by those who are in the secret. 
Hence an argument has been drawn to supersede the necessity 
of conversation altogether; for it has been said that there is 
no use in talking to people of sense, who know all that you can 
tell them, nor to fools, who will not be instructed. There is, 
however, the smallest encouragement to proceed, when you are 
conscious that the more you really enter into a subject, the 
farther you will be from the comprehension of your hearers, 
and that the more proofs you give of any position, the more 
odd and o*at-of-the-way they will think your notions. C — ^^ 
is the only person who can talk to all sorts of people, on all 
sorts of subjects, without caring a farthing for their under- 
standing one word he says, — and he talks only for admiration 

9. Wlien Greek, etc. Misquoted as commonly, from Lee's 
play, Alexander the Great , where the line reads: "When Greeks 
joined Greeks, then was the tug of war." 

10. C . Coleridge. Carlyle describes the conversation of 

Coleridge in this same period, in a caustic chapter of his Life of 
Sterling. Speaking of the home of the Gilmans, with whom 
Coleridge lived, he says: "Here for hours would Coleridge talk, 
concerning all conceivable or inconceivable things; and liked 
nothing better than to have an intelligent, or failing that, even 
a silent and patient listener. . . . Nothing could be more copious 
than his talk; and furthermore it was always, virtually or 
literally, of the nature of a monologue; suffering no interrup- 
tion, however reverent j hastily putting aside all foreign additions, 
annotations, or most ingenious desires for elucidation, as well- 
meant superfluities which would never do." 



HAZLITT 203 

and to be listened to, and accordingly the least interruption 
puts him out. I firmly believe he would make just the same 
impression on half his audiences if he purposely repeated abso- 
lute nonsense with the same voice and manner and inexhaust- 
ible flow of undulating speech ! In general, wit shines only by 
reflection. You must take your cue from your company — - 
m.ust rise as they rise, and sink as they fall. You must see 
that your good things, your knowing allusions, are not flung 
away, like the pearls in the adage. What a check it is to be 
asked a foolish question; to find that the first principles are 
not understood! You are thrown on your back immediately; 
the conversation is stopped like a country dance by those 
who do not know the figure. But when a set of adepts, of 
illuminatiy^'^ get about a question, it is worth while to hear 
them talk. They may snarl and quarrel over it, like dogs; 
but they pick it bare to the bone, they masticate it thoroughly. 
This was the case formerly at L — 's,^^ where we used to have 
many lively skirmishes at their Thursday evening parties. I 
doubt whether the Small-coal man's^^ musical parties could 
exceed them. Oh ! for the pen of John Buncle^* to consecrate 

a petit souvenir^^ to their memory ! There was L himself, 

the most delightful, the most provoking, the most witty and 
sensible of men. He always made the best pun and the best 
remark in the course of the evening. His serious conversation, 
like his serious writing, is his best. No one ever stammered 
out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in half a dozen 
sentences as he does. His jests scald like tears; and he probes 
a question with a play upon words. What a keen, laughing, 

11. iUmninati. Persons initiated into special knowledge. 

12. 3^ 's. Lamb's. 

13. Small-coal man's. This man was Thomas Britton, a coal- 
dealer and amateur in music, who devoted the floor above his 
shop to weekly concerts in which the greatest performers of the 
time were heard. 

14. Jolin Buncle. Thomas Amory, a writer of the eighteenth 
century, whose eccentric work called Life of John Buncle (1756-66) 
Hazlitt greatly admired. 

15. petit souvenir. Little memoir. 



204 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

hair-brained vein of home-felt truth! What choice venom! 
How often did we cut into the haunch of letters, while we 
discussed the haunch of mutton on the table! How we 
skimmed the cream of criticism! How we got into the heart 
of controversy! How we picked out the marrow of authors! 
"And, in our flowing cups, many a good name and true was 
freshly remembered."^^ Recollect, most sage and critical 
reader, that in all this I was but a guest ! Need I go over the 
names'? They were but the old everlasting set — Milton and 
Shakespeare, Pope and Dryden, Steele and Addison, Swift 
and Gay, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Richardson, Hogarth's 
prints,^^ Claude's landscapes,^^ the cartoons at Hampton 
Court,^® and all those things that, having once been, must 
ever be. The Scotch Novels^^ had not then been heard of; so 
we said nothing about them. In general, we were hard upon 
the modems. The author of the Ramhler^'^ was only tolerated 
in BoswelFs Life of him, and it was as much as any one 

could do to edge in a word for Junius. ^^ L could, not 

bear Gil Blas.^^ This was a fault. I remember the greatest 
triumph I ever had was in persuading him, after some years' 
difficulty, that Fielding was better than Smollett.^* On one 
occasion, he was for making out a list of persons famous in 
history that one would wish to see^^ again; — at the head of 

16. In our flowing cups, etc. Inaccurately quoted from Henry 
Fifth, IV, iii. 

17. Hogrartlis' prints. See page 133. 

18. Claude's landscapes. Those of Claude L»orrain, a French 
painter of the seventeenth century. 

19. cartoons at Hampton Court. See note above, page 173. 

20. Scotcli Novels. Scott's. 

21. author of th.e Ramliler. Dr. Samuel Johnson. 

22. Junius. The writer of certain famous political letters pub- 
lished between 1768 and 1772; his identity has never been estab- 
lished. 

23. Gil Bias. A French novel of adventure by Le Sage (pub- 
lished 1715-35). 

24. Fielding- . . . Smollett. Contemporary English novelists 
of the mid-eighteenth century. 

25. persons . . . that one would wish to see. To the conver- 
sation that followed this proposal Kazlitt devoted an entire 
essay, called "On Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen." 



HAZLITT 205 

whom were Pontius Pilate, Sir Thomas Browne,^^ and Dr. 
Faustus^^ — but we black-balled most of his list! But with 
what a gusto would he describe his favorite authors, Donne, 
or Sir Philip Sidney,^^ and call their most crabbed passages 
delicious! He tried them on his palate as epicures taste 
olives, and his observations had a smack in them, like a rough- 
ness on the tongue. With what discrimination he hinted a 
defect in what he admired most — as in saying that the display 
of the sumptuous banquet^^ in Paradise Regained was not in 
true keeping, as the simplest fare was all that was necessary 
to tempt the extremity of hunger, and stating that Adam and 
Eve in Paradise Lost were too much like married people. He 

has furnished many a text for C to preach upon. There 

was no fuss or cant about him; nor were his sweets or his 
sours ever diluted with one particle of affectation. 

I cannot say that the party at L 's were all of one 

description. There were honorary members, lay-brothers. Wit 
and good-fellowship was the motto inscribed over the door. 
When a stranger came in, it was not asked, "Has he written 
anything?" — ^we were above that pedantry; but we waited to 
see what he could do. If he could take a hand at piquet, he 
was welcome to sit down. If a person liked anything, if he 
took snuff heartily, it was sufficient. He would understand, 
by analogy, the pungency of other things besides Irish black- 
guard^^ or Scotch rappee. A character was good anywhere, in 
a room or on paper. But we abhorred insipidity, affectation, 
and fine gentlemen. There was one of our party who never 
failed to mark "two for his nob"^^ at cribbage, and he was 

26. Sir Thomas Browne. See note above, page 119. 

27. Dr. Fanstus. A German magician, partly historic and 
partly legendary, made the subject of a play by the Elizabethan 
dramatist Marlowe. 

28. Doxme . . . Sidney. Elizabethan poets. 

29. banquet. Represented by Milton as displayed to Christ by 
Satan at the time of the Temptation in the wilderness. 

30. Irish blackgruard. A strong snuff; rappee is much the same. 

31. two for his nob. A term for a point counted in the game. 



206 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

thought no mean person. This was Ned P ,^2 g^j^j ^ better 

fellow in his way breathes not. There was , who asserted 

some incredible matter of fact as a likely paradox, and 
settled all controversies by an ipse dixit,^^ a fiat of his will, 
hammering out many a hard theory on the anvil of his brain — 
the Baron Munchausen^* of politics and praictical philosophy. 

There was Captain ,^^ who had you at an advantage by 

never understanding you. There was Jem White,^^ the author 
of Falstaff's Letters, who the other day left this dull world to 
go in search of more kindred spirits, "turning like the latter 

end of a lover's lute."^^ There was A ,^^ who sometimes 

dropped in, the Will Honeycomb of our set ; and Mrs. R ,^^ 

who, being of a quiet turn, loved to hear a noisy debate. An 
utterly uninformed person might have supposed this a scene 
of vulgar confusion and uproar. While the most critical 
question was pending, while the most difficult problem in 

philosophy was solving, P cried out, "That's game," and 

M. B.^^ muttered a quotation over the last remains of a veal- 
pie at a side-table. Once, and once only, the literary interest 

overcame the general. For C was riding the high German 

horse, and demonstrating the Categories*^ of the trans- 



32. Ned p. Edward Phillips, a friend of Lamb's, much addicted 
to card- playing-. 

33. ipse dixit. Dogrmatic announcement (literally, "Himself has 
said it."). 

34. Baron Muncliauseii. A German of the eig"hteenth century, 
to whose name was attached a famous collection of absurd tales. 

35. Captain . Rear Admiral Burney (1750-1821), brother 

of the novelist Frances Burney. 

36. Jem WMte. See Lamb's essay on Chimney-Sweeps, and the 
note on page 135. White had written a humorous work called 
Original Letters of Sir John Falstaff, etc. 

37. turning' like, etc. The phrase is from one of the letters In 
White's book. 

38. A . William Ayrton; see note on page 112. 

39 Mrs. B. Mrs. Reynolds, a friend and old schoolmistress of 
Lamb's. 

40. M. B. Martin Burney, an eccentric character familiar in 
this circle. 

41. Categ>ories. A term connected with the philosophic doc- 
trines of Kant. 



HAZLITT 207 

cendental philosophy to the author of The Boad to Ruin,^^ 
who insisted on his knowledge of German and German meta- 
physics, having read the Critique of Pure Reason^^ in the 

original. "My dear Mr. Holcroft/' said C , in a tone of 

infinitely provoking conciliation, "you really put me in mind 
of a sweet pretty German girl, about fifteen, that I met with 
in the Hartz Forest in Germany, and who one day, as I was 
reading The Limits of the Knowahle and the Unknowable, the 
prof oundest of all his works, with great attention came behind 
my chair, and leaning over, said, What, you read Kant*? Why 
I that am German bom don't understand him !' " This was 
too much to bear, and Holcroft, starting up, called out in no 

measured tone, "Mr. C , you are the most eloquent man 

I ever met with, and the most troublesome with your 

eloquence !'' P held the cribbage-peg that was to mark 

him game, suspended in his hand, and the whist table was 
silent for a moment. I saw Holcroft downstairs, and, on 
coming to the landing-place in Mitre Court, he stopped me to 

observe that '^e thought Mr. C a very clever man, with a 

great command of language, but that he feared he did not 
always affix very precise ideas to the words he used." After 
he was gone, we had our laugh out, and went on with the 
argument on the nature of Reason, the Imagination, and the 
Will. I wish I could find a publisher for it; it would make a 
supplement to the Biographia Literaria^^ in a volume and a 
half octavo. 

Those days are over ! An event,*^ the name of which I wish 
never to mention, broke up our party, like a bomb-shell thrown 
into the room; and now we seldom meet — 

42. The Boad to Bain. By Thomas Holcroft, dramatist and 
radical pamphleteer. 

43. Critique of Pure Beasou. One of the chief works of the 
philosopher Kant. 

44. Biograpliia Literaria. By Coleridge; a valuable but rambling- 
account of his career and theories. 

45. An event, etc. Probably the return of Napoleon from Elba 
and his final defeat at Waterloo. This Hazlitt viewed as being 
in a sense the end of the great revolutionary era. 



208 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Like angels' visits, short and far between.46 

There is no longer the same set of persons, nor of asssocia- 

tions. L does not live where he did. By shifting his 

abode, his notions seem less fixed. He does not wear his old 
snuff-coloured coat and breeches. It looks like an alteration 
in his style. An author and a wit should have a separate 
costume, a particular cloth; he should present something 
positive and singular to the mind, like Mr. Douce^^ of the 
Museum. Our faith in the religion of letters will not bear to' 
be taken to pieces, and put together again by caprice or acci- 
dent. L. H. ^^ goes there sometimes. He has a fine vinous 

spirit about him, and tropical blood in his veins; but he is 
better at his own table. He has a great flow of pleasantry 
and delightful animal spirits; but his hits do not tell like 

L 's; you cannot repeat them the next day. He requires 

not only to be appreciated, but to have a select circle of 
admirers and devotees, to feel himself quite at home. He sits 
at the head of a party with great gaiety and grace; has an 
elegant manner and turn of features; is never at a loss — 
aliquando sufflaminandus erat^^ — ^has continual sportive sallies 
of wit or fancy; tells a story capitally; mimics an actor or an 
acquaintance to admiration; laughs with great glee and good 
humor at his own or other people's jokes; understands the 
point of an equivoque or an observation immediately; has a 
taste and knowledge of books, of music, of m.edals; manages 
an argument adroitly; is genteel and gallant, and has a set of 
bye-phrases and quaint allusions always at hand to produce a 
laugh ; — if he has . a fault, it is that he does not listen so well 
as he speaks, is impatient of interruption, and is fond of being 
looked up to, without considering by whom. ... 

46. Iiifee angfels' visits, etc. Inaccurately quoted from Blair's 
poem "The Grave." 

47. Mr. Bonce. Francis Douce, an antiquarian who was Keeper 
of Manuscripts in the British Museum. 

48. Ia= H. Leig-h Hunt. 

49. alicLuando, etc. "Sometimes he had to be checked"; a 
saying- of the Latin writer Seneca's. 



LEIGH HUNT 

[James Henry Leigh Hunt was born in 1784, and (like Lamb and 
Colerldg-e) received his early education at Christ's Hospital. He 
wavered between the study of law and his love for writing, 
until he won some success throug-h critical papers published in 
the journal called the Traveler. Later, with his brother John, 
he founded a weekly paper, the Examiner, which had the honor 
of publishing- some of the early poems of Keats and Shelley. 
Other journals followed, some of them giving attention to 
politics from the Radical standpoint; and in 1813 the two 
brothers were sentenced to fine and imprisonment for an article 
attacking the personal character of the Prince Regent. While 
in prison, and for the remainder of his life, Hunt devoted him- 
self to miscellaneous writing, especially in the field of literary 
criticism. In 1822 he went to Italy to join Byron and Shelley in 
the founding of a new journal, the Liberal; but it was shortlived 
partly because of the death of Shelley and misunderstandings 
between Byron and Hunt. Hunt's whole body of writing is large, 
but does not contain a single work of outstanding importance. His 
character was amiable but lacking in strength and responsibility. 
He died in 1859.] 



ON THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES OF PIG-DRIVINGi 

From the perusal of this article we beg leave to warn off 
vulgar readers of all denominations, whether of the ^^great 
vulgar or the small."^ Warn, did we say? We drive them 
off; for Horace tells us that they, as well as pigs, are to be so 

1. In this essay Hunt is obviously following in the footsteps 
of Lamb, and for once attains the whimsical art of his master. 
Carlyle wrote of it that he found it "a most tickling thing; not 
a word of which I can remember, only the whole fact of it, 
pictured in such sub-quizzical sweet-acid geniality of mockery, 
stands here, and, among smaller and greater things, will stand." 

2. great vnlg'ar, etc. From Cowley's translation of Horace's 
line, Odi profanum vulgus^ et arceo: 

Hence ye profane; I hate you all; 
Both the great vulgar, and the small. 

209 



210 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

treated. Odi profanum vulgus, says he, et arceo. But do thou 
lend thine ear, gentle shade of Goldsmith, who didst make thy 
bear-leader^ denounce ^^everything as is low'' ; and thou, Steele, 
who didst humanize* upon public-houses and puppet-shows; 
and Fielding, thou whom the great Richardson,^ less in that 
matter (and some others) than thyself, did accuse of vulgarity, 
because thou didst discern natural gentility in a footman, and 
yet was not to be taken in by the airs of Pamela and my 
Lady G. 

The title is a little startling; but ^^style and sentiment," as 
a lady said, "can do anything/' Remember, then, gentle 
reader, that talents are not to be despised in the humblest 
walks of life; we will add, nor in the muddiest. The other 
day we happened to be among a set of spectators who could 
not help stopping to admire the patience and address with 
which a pig-driver huddled and cherished onward his drove of 
unaccommodating Sieves,^ down a street in the suburbs. He 
was a born genius for a maneuver. Had he originated in a 
higher sphere he would have been a general, or a stage-man- 
ager, or, at least, the head of a set of monks. Conflicting 
interests were his forte; pig-headed wills, and proceedings 
hopeless. To see the hand with which he did it ! How hover- 
ing, yet firm ; how encouraging, yet compelling ; how indicative 
of the space on each side of him, and yet of the line before 
him ; how general, how particular, how perfect ! No barber's 
could quiver about a head with more lightness of apprehension ; 

3. Tbear-leader. One who leads about a bear to exhibit its 
tricks. Hunt is referring to a vulgar character in the inn scene 
of She Stoops to Conquer, who says of Tony Lumpkin, "I loves to 
hear him sing, bekays he never gives us nothing that's low." 

4. didst liumanize. In his periodical essays on familiar life. 

5. Richardson. A novelist contemporary with Fielding and 
Smollett (see note above, page 204). Pamela is the heroine of 
his first novel, — a virtuous maid-servant, — Lady Grandison of 
his last novel. Sir Charles Grandison. Hunt views the somewhat 
affected morality and good manners of these characters as inferior 
to the more hearty and genuine standards of Fielding's charac- 
ters; the "footman" is the hero of Fielding's first novel, Joseph 
Andrews. 

6. 616ves, Pupils, charges. 



LEIGH HUNT 211 

5 no cook's pat up and proportion the side of a pasty with a 
more final eye. The whales, quoth old Chapman, speaking of 
Neptune, 

The whales exulted under him, and knew their mighty king. 7 

The pigs did not exult, but they knew their king. Unwilling 
was their subjection, but "more in sorrow than in anger. ''^ 
They were too far gone for rage. Their case was hopeless. 
They did not see why they should proceed, but they felt 
themselves bound to do so; forced, conglomerated, crowded 
onwards, irresistibly impelled by fate and Jenkins. Often 
would they have bolted under any other master. They squeaked 
and grunted as in ordinary; they sidled, they shuffled, they 
half stopped; they turned an eye to all the little outlets of 
escape; but in vain. There they stuck (for their very progress 
was a sort of sticking), charmed into the center of his sphere 
of action, laying their heads together, but to no purpose; 
looking all as if they were shrugging their shoulders, and 
eschewing the tip-end of the whip of office. Much eye had 
they to their left leg; shrewd backward glances; not a little 
anticipative squeak and sudden rush of avoidance. It was a 
superfluous clutter, and they felt it ; but a pig finds it more 
difficult than any other animal to accommodate himself to 
circumstances. Being out of his pale, he is in the highest 
state of wonderment and inaptitude. He is sluggish, obstinate, 
opinionate, not very social; has no desire of seeing foreign 
parts. Think of him in a multitude, forced to travel, and 
wondering what the devil it is that drives him ! Judge by this 
of the talents of his driver. 

We beheld a man once, an inferior genius, inducting a pig 
into the other end of Long Lane, Smithfield. He had got him 
thus far towards the market. It was much. His air announced 
success in nine parts out of ten, and hope for the remainder. 

7. Tlie whales, etc. From Chapman's translation of Homer's 
Iliad. 

8. more in sorrow, eta From Hamlet, I, ii. 



212 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

It had been a happy morning's work; he had only to look for 
the termination of it; and he looked (as a critic of an exalted 
turn of mind would say) in brightness and in joy. Then 
would he go to the public-house, and indulge in porter and a 
pleasing security. Perhaps he would not say much at first, 
being oppressed with the greatness of his success; but by 
degrees, especially if interrogated, he would open, like 
iEneas,^ into all the circumstances of his journey and the 
perils that beset him. Profound would be his set-out; full of 
tremor his middle course; high and skillful his progress; 
glorious, though with a quickened pulse, his triumphant entry. 
Delicate had been his situation in Ducking Pond Row; mas- 
terly his turn at Bell Alley. We saw him with the radiance 
of some such thought on his countenance. He was just enter- 
ing Long Lane. A gravity came upon him, as he steered his 
touchy convoy into this his last thoroughfare. A dog moved 
him into a little agitation, darting along; but he resumed his 
course, not without a happy trepidation, hovering as he was on 
the borders of triumph. The pig still required care. It was 
evidently a pig with all the peculiar turn of mind of his 
species; a fellow that would not move faster than he could 
help; irritable, retrospective; picking objections, and prone 
to boggle; a chap with a tendency to take every path but the 
proper one, and with a sidelong tact for the alleys. 

He bolts ! 

He's off! — Evasit! erupitl'^^ 

"Oh," exclaimed the man, dashing his hand against his 
head, lifting his knee in agony, and screaming with all the 
weight of a prophecy which the spectators felt to be too true — 
"He^ll go up all manner of streets!'' 

Poor fellow ! We think of him now sometimes, driving up 
Duke Street, and not to be comforted in Barbican. 



9. like ^neas. In the second book of the Mneid of Vergil. 
10. Evasit I etc. "He has escaped! he has broken away 
(From Cicero's second oration on Catiline.) 



LEIGH HUNT 213 

SPRING AND DAISIES 

Spring^ while we are writing, is complete. The winds have 
done their work. The shaken air, well tempered and equalized, 
has subsided ; the genial rains, however thickly they may come, 
do not saturate the ground beyond the power of the sun to dry 
it up again. There are clear crystal mornings; noons of blue 
sky and white cloud; nights, in which the growing moon 
seems to lie looking at the stars, like a young shepherdess at 
her flock. A few days ago she lay gazing in this manner at 
the solitary evening star, like Diana, on the slope of a valley, 
looking up at Endymion.^ His young eye seemed to sparkle 
out upon the world; while she, bending inwards, her hands 
behind her head, watched him with an enamoured dumbness. 

But this is the quiet of Spring. Its voices and swift move- 
ments have come back also. The swallow shoots by us, like 
an embodied ardor of the season. The glowing bee has his 
will of the honeyed flowers, grappling with them as they 
tremble. We have not yet heard the nightingale or the 
cuckoo; but we can hear them with our imagination, and enjoy 
them through the content of those who have. 

Then the young green. This is the most apt and perfect 
ihark of the season — the true issuing forth of the Spring. 
The trees and bushes are putting forth their crisp fans; the 
lilac is loaded with bud ; the meadows are thick with the bright 
young grass, running into sweeps of white and gold with the 
daisies and butter-cups. The orchards announce their riches, in 
a shower of silver blossoms. The earth in fertile woods is 
spread with yellow and blue carpets of primroses, violets, and 
hyacinths, over which the birch-trees, like stooping nymphs, 
hang with their thickening hair. Lilies-of-the-valley, stocks, 
columbines, lady-smocks, and the intensely red peony which 
seems to anticipate the full glow of summer-time, all come out 
to wait upon the season, like fairies from their subterraneous 
palaces. 

1. XSndyiuioii. The youth beloved of the moon-g"oddess. 



214 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Who is to wonder that the idea of love mingles itself with 
that of this cheerful and kind time of the year, setting aside 
even common associations? It is not only its youth, and 
beauty, and budding life, and "the passion of the groves,''^ 
that exclaim with the poet: 

Let those love now, who never loved before; 

And those who always loved, now love the more.s 

All our kindly impulses are apt to have more sentiment in 
them than the world suspect; and it is by fetching out this 
sentiment, and making it the ruling association, that we exalt 
the impulse into generosity and refinement, instead of degrad- 
ing it, as is too much the case, into what is selfish and coarse, 
and pollutes all our systems. One of the greatest inspirers 
of love is gratitude — not merely on its common grounds, but 
gratitude for pleasures, whether consciously or unconsciously 
conferred. Thus we are thankful for the delight given us by 
a kind and sincere face; and if we fall in love with it, one 
great reason is, that we long to return what we have received. 
The same feeling has a considerable influence in the love that 
has been felt for men of talents, whose persons or address 
have not been much calculated to inspire it. In springtime^ 
joy awakens the heart; with joy awakes gratitude and nature; 
and in our gratitude we return, on its own principle of 
participation, the love that has been shown us. 

This association of ideas renders solitude in spring, and 
solitude in winter, two very different things. In the latter, 
we are better content to bear the feelings of the season by 
ourselves; in the former, they are so sweet, as well as so over- 
flowing, that we long to share them. Shakespeare, in one of 
his sonnets,* describes himself as so identifying the beauties 

2. the passion, etc. From Thomson's Seasons ("Spring'). 

3. Let those love, etc. Parnell's version of the opening lines 
of a famous Latin poem called Pervigilium Veneris: 

Cras amet qui nunquam amavit, quique amavit eras amet. 

4. one of his sonnets. The 98th. 



LEIGH HUNT 215 

of the Spring with the thought of his absent mistress, that 
he says he forgot them in their own character, and played 
with them only as her shadow. See how exquisitely he turns 
a commonplace into this fancy; and what a noble, brief 
portrait of April he gives us at the beginning. There is indeed 
a wonderful mixture of softness and strength in almost every 
one of the lines : 

From you have I been absent in the spring, 

When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim. 
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything; 

That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. 
Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 

Of different flowers in odor and in hue, 
Could make me any summer's story tell. 

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: 
Nor did I wonder at the lilies white. 

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose: 
They were but sweet, but patterns of delight. 

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. 
Yet seemed it winter still; and, you away. 
As with your shadow I v.dth these did play. 

Shakespeare was fond of alluding to April. He did not 
allow May to have all his regard, because she was richer. 
Perdita, crowned with fliowers, in the Winter^s Tale, is beau- 
tifully compared to 

Flora, 
Peering in April's front. 5 

There is a line in one of his sonnets, which, agreeably to 
the image he had in his mind, seems to strike up in one's face, 
hot and odorous, like perfume in a censer. 

In process of the seasons have I seen 

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned.^ 

5. April's front. The beginning of April (W. Tale, IV, iv). 

6. In process of, etc. Sonnet 104. 



216 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

His allusions to Spring are numerous in proportion. We 
all know the song containing that fine line, fresh from the 
most brilliant of pallettes: — 

When daisies pied, and violets blue. 
And lady-smocks all silver white. 

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, 

Do paint the meadows with delightJ 

We owe a long debt of gratitude to the daisy; and we take 
this opportunity of discharging a millionth part of it. If we 
undertook to pay it all, we should have had to write such a 
book as is never very likely to be written — a journal of 
numberless happy hours in childhood, kept with the feelings 
of an infant and the pen of a man. For it. would take, we 
suspect, a depth of delight and a subtlety of words to express 
even the vague joy of infancy, such as our learned departures 
from natural wisdom would find it more difficult to put 
together, than criticism and comfort, or an old palate and a 
young relish. But knowledge is the widening and the bright- 
ening road that must conduct us back to the joys from which 
it led us, and which it is destined perhaps to secure and 
extend. We must not quarrel with its asperities, when we can 
help. 

We do not know the Greek name of the daisy, nor do the 
dictionaries inform us; and we are not at present in the way 
of consulting books that might. We always like to see what 
the Greeks say to these things, because they had a sentiment 
in their enjoyments. The Latins called the daisy Bellis or 
Bellus, as much as to say Nice One. With the French and 
Italians it has the same name as a Pearl — Marguerite, Marga- 
rita, or, by way of endearment, Margheretina. The same word 
was the name of a woman, and occasioned infinite intermix- 
tures of compliment about pearls, daisies, and fair mistresses. 



7. Wlien daisies pled, etc. From Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii. 



LEIGH HUNT 217 

Chaucer, in his beautiful poem of The Floiver and the Leafy^ 
which is evidently imitated from some French poetess, says: 

And at the laste there began anon 

A lady for to sing right womanly 

A bargaret9 in praising the daisie. 

For as me thought among her notes sweet, 

She said "Si douset est la Margarete." 

'^The Margaret is so sweet." Our Margaret, however, in 
this allegorical poem, is undervalued in comparison with the 
laurel; yet Chaucer perhaps was partly induced to translate it 
on account of its making the figure that it does; for he has 
informed us more than once, in a very particular manner, 
that it was his favorite flower. He says that he finds it ever 
new, and that he shall love it till his "heart dies";^^ and 
afterwards, with a natural picture of his resting on the grass, 

Adown full softeleyii I gan to sink, 
And leaning on my elbow and my side. 
The long day I shope me for to abide 
For nothing else, and I shall not lie, 
But for to look upon the daisie; 
That well by reason men it calle may , 
The daisie, or else the eye of day. 

This etymology, which we have no doubt is the real one, is 
repeated by Ben Jonson, who takes occasion to spell the word 

8. Tlie Flower and tlie ]Qeaf. A Middle English poem included 
in old editions of Chaucer, but now known not to be his. 

9. 'barg'aret. A pastoral song- and dance. 

10. till his Ixeart dies. "Till that myn herte dye"; Prologue to 

the Legend of Good Women, 

11. Adown t-aW softeley, etc. This passage, from the same 
Prologue of Chaucer's, Hunt quotes from an imperfect text which 
it is almost impossible to read metrically. The more correct text 
(in wh7.ch the final ^'s are to be read as separate syllables) runs: 

A-doun ful softely I gan to sinke; 
And, lening on myn elbowe and my syde, 
The longe day I shoop me for to abyde 
For nothing elles, and I shal nat lye. 
But for to loke upon the dayesye, 
That wel by reson men hit calle may 
The 'dayesye' or elles 'ye of day.' 
"Shop me" means planned, resolved. 



218 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

^^days-eyes," adding, with his usual tendency to overdo a 
matter of learning, 

Days-eyes, and lippes of cows, — 12 

videlicet^ cowslips: which is a disentanglement of compounds, 
in the style of our pleasant parodists — 

Puddings of the plum, 
And fingers of the lady. 

Mr. Wordsworth introduces his homage to the daisy with a 
passage from George Wither ;^^ which, as it is an old favorite 
of ours, and extremely applicable both to this article and our 
whole work, we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of repeat- 
ing. It is the more interesting, inasmuch as it was written in 
prison, where the freedom of the author's opinions had thrown 
him. He is speaking of his Muse, or Imagination. 

Her divine skill taught me this, 
That from everything I saw 
I could some instruction draw. 
And raise pleasure to the height 
From the meanest object's sight. 
By the* murmur of a spring, 
Or the least bough's rustelling ; 1* 
By a daisy, whose leaves spread 
Shut, when Titan goes to bed; 
Or a shady bush or tree; 
She could more infuse in me, 
Than all Nature's beauties can 
In some other wiser man. 



12. Days-eyes, etc. From the masque of Pan's Anniversary. 

13. Georg*e Witlier. A poet of the early seventeenth century, 
v/ho in 1613 suffered imprisonment, apparently as a result of some 
satires he had published. The passage quoted is from the fourth 
eclogue of his collection called The Shepherd's Hunting; Wordsworth 
prefaces it to his poem on "The Daisy" — the one beg-mning "In 
youth from rock to rock I went." 

14. rastellin^. So spelled to indicate the trisyllabic pronun- 
ciation. 



I 



LEIGH HUNT 219 

Mr. Wordsworth undertakes to patronize the Celandine,^^ 
because nobody else will notice it; which is a good reason. 
But though he tells us, in a startling piece of information, 
that 

Poets, vain men in their mood, 

Travel with the multitude, 

yet he falls in with his old brethren of England and Nor- 
mandy, and becomes loyal to the daisy. 

Mr. Wordsworth calls the daisy "an unassuming common- 
place of Nature/'^^ which it is; and he praises it very becom- 
ingly for discharging its duties so cheerfully, in that universal 
character. But we cannot agree with him in thinking that it 
has a "homely face." Not that we should care if it had; for 
homeliness does not make ugliness; but we appeal to every- 
body, whether it is proper to say this of la belle Marguerite, 
In the first place, its shape is very pretty and slender, but not 
too much so. Then it has a boss of gold, set round and irra- 
diated vdth silver points. Its yellow and fair white are in so 
high a taste of contrast, that Spenser has chosen the same 
colors for a picture of Leda reposing: 

Oh wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man! 

That her in daflFodillies sleeping laid. 

From scorching heat her dainty limbs to shade.i7 

It is for the same reason that the daisy, being chiefly white, 
makes such a beautiful show in company with the buttercup. 
But this is not all; for look at the back,^^ and you find its fair 

15. the Celandine. The "lesser celandine" or pile wort. Hunt 
quotes from Wordsworth's poem called "To a Small Celandine." 

16. an unassuming^, etc. Prom another poem of Wordsworth's 
on the Daisy, called "To the Same Flower." 

17. Oil wondrous sMIl, etc. From the Faerie Queene, Book III, 
canto xi. 

18. look at tlie back. Hunt of course refers to the English 
daisy, which, unlike the American wild variety, shows the red 
color underneath the petals. It was to this that Tennyson re- 
ferred, as he explained, in the lines in which he described Maud's 
feet as having "touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy" 
— 'that is, with some of the petals upturned. 



220 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAJST 

petals blushing with a most delightful red. And how com- 
pactly and delicately is the neck set in green! Belle et douce 
Marguerite, aimdble soeur du roi Kingcup, "^^ we would tilt^^ 
for thee with a hundred pens, against the stoutest poet that 
did not find perfection in thy cheek. 

But here somebody may remind us of the spring showers, 
and what drawbacks they are upon going into the fields. — ^Not 
at all so, when the spring is really confirmed, and the showers 
but April-like and at intervals. Let us turn our imaginations 
to the bright side of spring, and we shall forget the showers. 
You see they have been forgotten just this moment. Besides, 
we are not likely to stray too far into the fields; and if we 
should, are there not hats, bonnets, barns, cottages, elm-trees, 
and good wills ? We may make these things zests, if we please, 
instead of drawbacks. 

19. Belle et donee, etc. "Lovely and g-entle Marguerite, charm- 
ing- sister of the sovereig-n King-cup." Hunt is imitating- the 
address of a medieval courtier to his lady. 

20. tilt. Combat in the tourney. 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY 

[Thomas De Quincey was born at Manchester in 1785, of a pros- 
perous family. A precocious, moody, and eccentric boy, he left 
school when about seventeen and led a rambling- life, first on 
the hig-hways of Eng-land and Wales, later in London; of these 
days he has given an account, of which it is difficult to distin- 
g-uish the real and the imagrinative elements, in The Confessions of 
an Opium Eater. After a short period of study at Worcester Col- 
lege, Oxford, he devoted himself to the private study of philos- 
ophy, economics, German, etc., and beg-an to write for magazines. 
To the London Magazine he made his most famous contribution, 
the "Confessions," but for the most part was on the staff of 
Blackwood's. After a stay in the Lake country, made because of 
his admiration for Wordsworth, De Quincey settled in Edinburgh, 
where he died in 1859. From his college days he was always 
addicted to opium, but owing- to an extraordinary constitution it 
did not greatly affect his vigor or industry; he wrote an enormous 
number of essays and monographs, but no entire book of out- 
standing importance. His character was amiable but incurably 
eccentric, and he seemed to his best friends a somewhat mys- 
terious, not quite human, personality.] 



ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN "MACBETH"^ 

From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity 
on one point in Macbeth. It was this: — the knocking at the 
gate which succeeds to the murder of Duncan produced to 
my feelings an effect for which I never could account. The 
effect was that it reflected back upon the murderer a peculiar 
awfulness and a depth of solemnity; yet, however obstinately 

1. Th4s essay was published in the London Magazine, in 1823; 
!i it is the best known of De Quincey's excursions into literary 
i criticism. His attitude toward Shakespeare, especially the con- 
cluding paragraph, represents the feeling of the early nineteenth 
1 century romanticists, who viev/ed the great dramatist as a genius 
almost infallibly inspired in his art. The "Knocking" occurs at 
the oi>ening of scene 3 of Act II of the play. 

221 



222 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AjVIERICAN 

I endeavored with my understanding to comprehend this, 
for many years I never could see why it should produce such 
an eifect. 

Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to 
pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in 
opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere under- 
standing, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest 
faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted; and 
yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else, — ^which 
may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophical purposes. 
•Of this, out of ten thousand instances that I might produce, I 
will cite one. Ask of any person whatsoever who is not previ- 
ously prepared for the demand by a knowledge of perspective, 
to draw in the rudest way the commonest appearance which 
depends upon the laws of that science — as, for instance, to 
represent the effect of two walls standing at right angles to 
each other, or the appearance of the houses on each side of a 
street, as seen by a person looking down the street from one 
extremity. Now, in all cases, unless the person has happened 
to observe in pictures how it is that artists produce these 
eifeets, he will be utterly unable to make the smallest approx- 
imation to it. Yet why? For he has actually seen the effect 
every day of his life. The reason is that he allows his under- 
standing to overrule his eyes. His understanding, which 
includes no intuitive knowledge of the laws of vision, can 
furnish him with no reason why a line which is known and can 
be proved to be a horizontal line should not appear a horizontal 
line; a line that made any angle with the perpendicular less 
than a right angle would seem to him to indicate that his 
houses were all tumbling down together. Accordingly he 
makes the line of his houses a horizontal line, and fails of 
course to produce the effect demanded. Here then is one 
instance out of many, in which not only the understanding is 
allowed to overrule the eyes, but where the understanding is 
positively allowed to obliterate the eyes, as it were; for not 



DE QUINCEY 223 

only does the man believe the evidence of his understanding- 
in opposition to that of his eyes, but (what is monstrous) the 
idiot is not aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence. He 
does not know that he has seen (and therefore quoad his con- 
sciousness^ has not seen) that which he has seen every day of 
his life. 

But to return from this digression. My understanding could 
furnish no reason why the knocking at the gate in Macbeth 
should produce any effect, direct or reflected. In fact, my 
understanding said positively that it could not produce any 
effect. But I knew better ; I felt that it did ; and I waited and 
clung to the problem until further knowledge should enable 
me to solve it. At length, in 1812, Mr. Williams^ made his 
debut on the stage of Ratcliffe Highway, and executed those 
unparalleled murders which have procured for him such a 
brilliant and undying reputation. On which murders, by the 
way, I must observe, that in one respect they have had an ill 
effect, by making the connoisseur in murder very fastidious 
in his taste, and dissatisfied with anything that has been since 
done in that line. All other murders look pale by the deep 
crimson of his; and, as an amateur once said to me in a 
querulous tone, ^^ There has been absolutely nothing doing 
since his time, or nothing that's worth speaking of.'' But 
this is wrong, for it is unreasonable to expect all men to be 
great artists, and born with the genius of Mr. Williams. Now 
it will be remembered that in the first of these murders (that 
of the Marrs) the same incident (of a knocking at the door 
soon after the work of extermination was complete) did 
actually occur which the genius of Shakespeare has invented; 
and all good judges, and the most eminent dilettanti,^ acknowl- 

2. quoad his consciotisiiess. So far as his consciousness is 
concerned. 

3. IMCr. Williams. A well-known murderer of the period. De 
Qulncey professed, in a grimly humorous fashion, to be a con- 
noisseur in the art of murder, and in this paragraph adopts the 
same tone which he assumed in two quizzical essays "On Murder 
as one of the Fine Arts." 

4. dilettanti. Amateurs of the art. 



224 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

edged the felicity of Shakespeare's suggestion as soon as it 
^Yas actually realized. Here, then, was a fresh proof that I had 
been right in relying on my own feeling in opposition to my 
understanding; and again I set myself to study the problem. 
At length I solved it to my own satisfaction ; and my solution is 
this: — Murder, in ordinary cases, where the sympathy is 
wholly directed to the case of the murdered person, is an 
incident of coarse and vulgar hoiTor; and for this reason, — 
that it flings the interest exclusively upon the natural but 
ignoble instinct by which we cleave to life: an instinct which, 
as being indispensable to the primal law of self-preservation, 
is the same in kind (though different in degTee) amongst all 
living creatures. This instinct, therefore, because it annihil- . 
ates all distinctions, and degrades the greatest of men to the 
level of "the poor beetle that we tread on,'' exhibits human 
nature in its most abject and humiliating attitude. Such an 
attitude would little suit the purposes of the poet. What then 
must he do? He must throw the interest on the murderer. 
Our sympathy must be with him (of course I mean a sym- 
pathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which we enter into 
his feelings, and are made to understand them — not a sym- 
pathy of pity or approbation).* In the murdered person all 
strife of thought, all flux and reflux of passion and of pur- 
pose, are crushed by one overwhelming panic; the fear of 
instant death smites him "with its petrific mace."^ But in the 
mAirderer, such a murderer as a poet will condescend to, there 
nmst be raging some great storm of passion — jealousy, ambi- 

♦It seems almost ludicrous to g'uard and explain my use of a 
word in a situation where it would naturally explain itself. But 
3t has become necessary to do so, in consequence of the un- 
scholarlike use of the word sympathy, at present so general, by 
which, instead of taking" it in its proper sense, as the act of repro- 
ducing in our minds the feelings of another, whether for hatred, 
indignation, love, pity, or approbation, it is made a mere synonym 
of the word pity; and hence, instead of saying, "sympathy with 
another," many writers adopt the monstrous barbarism of "sym- 
pathy for another." [De Quincey's note.] 

5. petrific mace. Staff having the power of turning what it 
strikes to stone. The quotation is from Paradise Lost, Book x. 



f 



DE QUINCEY 225 

tion, vengeance, hatred — which will create a hell within him ; 
and into this hell we are to look. 

In Macbeth^ for the sake of gratifying his now enormous 
and teeming faculty of creation, Shakespeare has introduced 
two murderers ; and, as usual in his hands, they are remarkably 
discriminated; but — though in Macbeth the strife of mind is 
greater than in his wife, the tiger spirit not so awake, and his 
feelings caught chiefly by contagion from her — ^yet, as both 
were finally involved in the guilt of murder, the murderous 
mind of necessity is finally to be presumed in both« This was 
to be expressed ; and on its own account, as well as to make it 
a more proportionable antagonist to the unoffending nature of 
their victim, "the gracious Duncan," and adequately to 
expound "the deep damnation of his taking oif,"^ this was to 
be expressed with peculiar energy. We were to be made to 
feel that the human nature — i.e., the di\dne nature of love and 
mercy, spread through the hearts of all creatures, and seldom 
utterly withdrawn from man — was gone, vanished, extinct, 
and that the fiendish nature had taken its place. And, as this 
effect is marvelously accomplished in the dialogues and solilo- 
quies themselves, so it is finally consummated by the expedient 
under consideration; and it is to this that I now solicit the 
reader's attention. If the reader has ever witnessed a wife, 
daughter, or sister, in a fainting fit, he may chance to have 
observed that the most affecting moment in such a spectacle 
is that in which a sigh and a stirring announce the recommence- 
ment of suspended life. Or, if the reader has ever been 
present in a vast metropolis on the day when some great 
national idol was carried in funeral pomp to his grave, and, 
chancing to walk near the course through v/hich it passed, has 
felt powerfully, in the silence and desertion of the streets and 
in the stagnation of ordinary business, the deep interest which 
at that moment was possessing the heart of man, — if all at 
once he should hear the death-like stillness broken up by the 

6. deep damnation, etc. From Macbeth, I, vii. 



226 ESSAYS—ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

sound of wheels rattling away from the scene, and making 
known that the transitory vision was dissolved, he will be 
aware that at no moment was his sense of the complete sus- 
pension and pause in ordinary human concerns so full and 
affecting as at that moment when the suspension ceases, and 
the goings-on of human life are suddenly resumed. All action 
in any direction is best expounded, measured, and made 
apprehensible, by reaction. Now apply this to the case in 
Macbeth. Here, as I have said, the retiring of the human 
heart and the entrance of the fiendish heart was to be 
expressed and made sensible. Another world has stepped in; 
and the murderers are taken out of the region of human 
things, human purposes, human desires. They are trans- 
figured: Lady Macbeth is ^^unsexed"; Macbeth has forgot 
that he was born of woman ; both are conformed to the image 
of devils ;'' and the world of devils is suddenly revealed. But 
how shall this be conveyed and made palpable? In order that 
a new world may step in, this world must for a time dis- 
appear. The murderers, and the murder, must be insulated — 
cut off by an immeasurable gulf from the ordinary tide and 
succession of human affairs — locked up and sequestered in 
some deep recess; we must be made sensible that the world of 
ordinary life is suddenly arrested — laid asleep — tranced— 
racked into a dread armistice; time must be annihilated, rela- 
tion to things without abolished; and all must pass self- 
withdrawn into a deep syncope and suspension of earthly 
passion. Hence it is that, when the deed is done, when the 
work of darkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes 
away like a pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate 
is heard, and it makes known audibly that the reaction has 
commenced; the human has made its reflux upon the fiendish; 
the pulses of life are beginning to beat again; and the 
re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in which we live 

7. conformed to the imafife, etc, De Quincey axiapts, by way 
of contrast, the phrasing of St. Paul in Romans 8:29. 



DE QUIXCEY 227 

first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis 
that had suspended them. 

mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, 
simply and merely great works of art, but are also like the 
phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and 
the flowers, like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and 
thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our 
own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can 
be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert, but that, 
the farther we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see 
proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the 
careless eye had seen nothing but accident ! 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE^ 

. . . [My brother] had resented, with a shower of stones, 
an affront offered to us by an individual boy, belonging to a 
cotton factory ; for more than two years afterwards this became 
the teterrima causa^ of a skirmish or a battle as often as we 
passed the factory; and, unfortunately, that was twice a day 
on every day, except Sunday. Our situation in respect to the 
enemy was as follows: — Greenhay, a country-house, newly 
built by my father, at that time was a clear mile from the 
outskirts of* Manchester; but in after years, Manchester, 
throwing out the tentacula^ of its vast expansions, absolutely 
enveloped Greenhay; and, for anything I know, the grounds 
and gardens which then insulated the house may have long 
disappeared. Being a modest mansion, which (including hot 

1. This is not the title of a sing-le essay, but of one section of 
matter which De Quincey broug-ht together in the volume called 
Autobiographic Sketches. The portion here used is the most remark- 
able account of his childhood experiences, which it will be seen 
were in part natural and in part (like his character) abnormal 
and morbid. His older brother William, whom he portrays so 
vividly, was a boy of extraordinary promise, who died at the ag'e 
of sixteen. 

2. teterrima causa. Most dreadful cause. 

3. tentacula. Tentacles, 



228 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

walls/ offices, and gardener's house) had cost only six thousand 
pounds, I do not know how it should have risen to the distinc- 
tion of giving name to a region of that great town ; however, it 
has done so ; and at this time, therefore, after changes so great, 
it will be difficult for the habitue of that region to understand 
how my brother and myself could have a solitary road to trav- 
erse betw^een Greenhay and Princess Street, then the termina- 
tion, on that side, of Manchester. But so it was. Oxford 
Street^ like its namesake in London, was then called the Oxford 
Boad; and during the currency of our acquaintance with it, 
arose the first three houses in its neighborhood; of which tho 
third was built for the Reverend S. H., one of our guardians, 
for whom his friends had also built the church of St. Peter's — 
not a bowshot from the house. At present, however, he resided 
in Salford, nearly two miles from Greenhay; and to him we 
went over daily, for the benefit of his classical instructions. 
One sole cotton factory had then risen along the line of Oxford 
Street; and this was close to a bridge, which also was a new 
creation; for previously all passengers to Manchester went 
round by Garrat. This factory became to us the officina gen- 
tium,^ from which swarmed forth those Goths and Vandals® 
that continually threatened our steps; and this bridge became 
the eternal arena of combat, we taking good care to be on the 
right side of the bridge for retreat — i.e., on the town side, or 
the country side, accordingly as we were going out in the 
morning, or returning in the afternoon. Stones were the 
implements of warfare ; and by continual practice both parties 
became expert in throwing them. 

The origin of the feud it is scarcely requisite to rehearse, 
since the particular accident which began it was not the true 
efficient cause of our long warfare, but simply the casual 
occasion. The cause lay in our aristocratic dress. As children 

4. liot walls. Walls with sunny exposure, used for the growing 
of fruit. 

5. oSlcina grentlmn- Factory of the nations. 

6. O-oths and Vandals. The barbarian invaders of Rome. 



DE QUINCEY 229 

of an opulent family, where all pro\dsions were liberal, and all 
appointments elegant, we were uniformly well-dressed; and, in 
particular, we wore trousers (at that time unheard of, except 
among sailors), and we also wore Hessian boots^ — a crime that 
could not be forgiven in the Lancashire of that day, because it 
expressed the double offense of being aristocratic and being 
outlandish. We were aristocrats, and it was vain to deny it; 
could we deny our boots? whilst pur antagonists, if not abso- 
lutely sansculottes,^ were slovenly and forlorn in their dress, 
often unwashed, with hair totally neglected, and always cov- 
ered wdth flakes of cotton. Jacobins^ they were not, as regarded 
any sympathy with the Jacobinism that then desolated France ; 
for, on the contrary, they detested everything French, and 
answered with brotherly signals to the cry of "Church and 
King," or "King and Constitution." But, for all that, as 
they were perfectly independent, getting very high wages, and 
these wages in a mpde of industry that was then taking vast 
strides ahead, they contrived to reconcile this patriotic anti- 
Jacobinism with a personal Jacobinism of that sort which is 
native to the heart of man, who is by natural impulse (and not 
without a root of nobility, though also of base envy) impatient 
of inequality, and submits to it only through a sense of its 
necessity, or under a long experience of its benefits. 

It was on an early day of our new tirocinium,^^ or perhaps 
on the very first, that, as we passed the bridge, a boy happen- 
ing to issue from the factory sang out to us, derisively, "Hol- 
loa, Bucks 1" In this the reader may fail to perceive any 
atrocious insult commensurate to the long war which followed. 
But the reader is wrong. The word ^^dandies/' which was 
what the villain meant, had not then been born, so that he 

7. Hessian boots. Hig-h boots of a type especially associated 
with Hessian soldiers; sometimes called simply "Hessians." 

8. sansculottes. Men without breeches; a term applied to the 
members of some of the Parisian mobs in the French Revolution. 

9. JacoMns. Sympathizers with the French revolutionists 
(from the name of a revolutionary club at Paris). 

10. tirociniuni. First military service. 



230 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

could not have called us by that name, unless through the spirit 
of prophec3^ Buck was the nearest word at hand in his Man- 
chester vocabulary; he gave all he could, and let us dream the 
rest. But in the next moment he discovered our boots, and he 
consummated his crime by saluting us as "Boots ! boots P' My 
brother made a dead stop, surveyed him with intense disdain, 
and bade him draw near, that he might "give his flesh to the 
fowls of the air." The boy declined to accept this liberal invi- 
tation, and conveyed his answer by a most contemptuous and 
plebeian gesture, upon which my brother drove him in with a 
shower of stones. 

During this inaugural flourish of hostilities, I, for my part, 
remained inactive, and therefore, apparently neutral. But this 
w^as the last time that I did so : for the moment, indeed, I was 
taken by surprise. To be called a buck by one that had it in 
his choice to have called me a coward, a thief, or a murderer, 
struck me as a most pardonable offense; and as to hoots j that 
rested upon a flagrant fact that could not be denied ; so that at 
first I was green enough to regard the boy as very considerate 
and indulgent. But my brother soon rectified my views ; or, if 
any doubts remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense 
of my paramount duty to himself, which was threefold. First, 
it seems that I owed military allegiance to Mm, as my com- 
mander-in-chief, whenever we "took the field"; secondly, by 
the law of nations, I being a cadet^^ of my house, owed suit 
and service to him who was its head ; and he assured me, that 
twice in a year, on my birth-day and on his, he had a right, 
strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to set his foot 
upon my neck; lastly, by a law not so rigorous, but valid 
amongst gentlemen — viz., "by the comity of nations" — it 
seems I owed eternal deference to one so much older than 
myself, so much wiser, stronger, braver, more beautiful, and 
more swift of foot. Something like all this in tendency I had 
already believed, though I had not so minutely investigated the 

11. cadet. Younger brother. 



1 



DE QUINCEY 281 

modes and grounds of my duty. By temperament, and through 
natural dedication to despondency, I felt resting upon me 
always too deep and gloomy a sense of obscure duties attached 
to life, that I never should be able to fulfill; a burden which I 
could not carry, and which yet I did not know how to throw 
off. Glad, therefore, I was to find the whole tremendous weight 
of obligations — the law and the prophets — all crowded into 
this one pocket command, ^^Thou shalt obey thy brother as 
God's vicar upon earth." For now, if by any future stone 
leveled at him who had called me a "buck," I should chance to 
draw blood — perhaps I might not have committed so serious 
a trespass on any rights which he could plead: but if I had 
(for on this subject my convictions were still cloudy), at any 
rate the duty I might have violated in regard to this general 
brother, in right of Adam, w?.s canceled when it came into 
collision with my paramount duty to this liege brother of my 
own individual house. 

From this day, therefore, I obeyed all my brother's military 
commands with the utmost docility ; and happy it made me that 
every sort of doubt, or question, or opening for demur, was 
swallowed up in the unity of this one papal principle, dis- 
covered by my brother — viz., that all rights and duties of 
casuistry were transferred from me to himself. His was the 
judgment — his was the responsibility; and to me belonged 
only the sublime obligation of unconditional faith in him. That 
faith I realized. It is true that he taxed me at times, in his 
reports of particular fights, with "horrible cowardice," and 
even with a "cowardice that seemed inexplicable, except on the 
supposition of treachery." But this was only a fagon de 
parler^^ with him: the idea of secret perfidy, that was con- 
stantly moving under-ground, gave an interest to the progress 
of the war, which else tended to the monotonous. It was a 
dramatic artifice for sustaining the interest, where the incidents 
might happen to be too slightly diversified. But that he did 

12. fagon de parler. Manner of speaking-. 



232 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

not believe his own charges was clear, because he never 
repeated them in his "General History of the Campaigns/' 
which was a resume, or recapitulating digest, of his daily 
reports. 

We fought every day; and, generally speaking, twice every 
day; and the result was pretty uniform — ^viz., that my brother 
and I terminated the battle by insisting upon our undoubted 
right to run away. Magna Charta, I should fancy, secures that 
great right to every man ; else, surely, it is sadly defective. 
But out of this catastrophe to most of our skirmishes, and to 
all our pitched battles except one, grew a standing schism 
between my brother and myself. My unlimited obedience had 
respect to action, but not to opinion. Loyalty to my brother 
did not rest upon hypocrisy; because I was faithful, it did 
not follow that I must be false in relation to his capricious 
opinions. And these opinions sometimes took the shape of 
acts. Twice, at the least, in every week, but sometimes every 
night, my brother insisted on singing "Te Deum"^^ for sup- 
posed victories he had won ; and he insisted also on my bearing 
a part in these "Te Deums." Now, as I knew of no such 
victories, but resolutely asserted the truth — ^viz., that we ran 
away — a slight jar was thus given to the else triumphal effect 
of these musical ovations. Once having uttered my protest, 
however, willingly I gave my aid to the chanting; for I loved 
unspeakably the grand and varied system of chanting in the 
Romish and English Churches. And, looking back at this day 
to the ineffable benefits which I derived from the church of 
my childhood, I account among the very greatest those which 
reached me through the various chants connected with the "0, 
Jubilate,"!* the "Magnificat,"!^ the "Te Deum," the "Bene- 



13. Te Denxn. The ancient hymn beginning" "Te Deum lauda- 
mus," "We praise Thee, O God." 

14. O Jubilate. "Be joyful"; the opening of the Latin version of 
the 100th Psalm. 

15. Magnificat. The hymn based on Luke 1:46-55; "My soul doth 
magnify the Lord," etc. 



DE QUIXCEY 233 

dicite,"^^ etc. Through these chants it was that the soitoav 
which laid waste my infancy, and the devotion which nature 
had made a necessity of my being', were profoundly inter- 
fused: the sorrow gave reality and depth to the devotion; the 
devotion gave grandeur and idealization to the soitow. Neither 
was my love for chanting altogether without knowledge. A 
son of my reverend guardian, much older than myself, who 
possessed a singular faculty of producing a sort of organ 
accompaniment with one-half of his mouth, whilst he sang 
with the other half, had given me some instructions in the art 
of chanting: and, as to my brother, he, the hundred-handed 
Briareus,^^ could do all things; of course, therefore, he could 
chant. 

Once having begun, it followed naturally that the war should 
deepen in bitterness. Wounds that wrote memorials in the 
flesh, insults that rankled in the heart — these were not features 
of the case likely to be forgotten by our enemies, and far less 
by my fiery brother. I, for my part, entered not into any 
of the passions that war may be supposed to kindle, except 
only the chronic passion of anxiety. Fear it was not; for 
experience had taught me that, under the random firing of our 
undisciplined enemies, the chances were not many of being 
wounded. But the uncertainties of the war; the doubts in 
every separate action whether I could keep up the requisite 
connection with my brother; and, in case I could not, the utter 
darkness that surrounded my fate; whether, as a trophy won 
from Israel, I should be dedicated to the service of some 
Manchester Dagon, or pass through fire to Moloch ;^^ all 



16. Benedicite. An ancient hymn beg-inning "Benedicite omnia 
opera Domini," "O bless the Lord, all ye works of the Lord" ; in 
the service of the Eng-lish Church used as an alternate to the 
Te Deum. 

17. Brlareus. A monster of Greek mythology, son of Uranus, 
with a hundred arms. 

18. Dag'on . . . Molocli. Gods of the ancient Canaianites, 
famed for their bloodthirstiness. To "pass throug"h the Are to 
Moloch" was to be burned in a furnace constructed in the image 
of the g-od. 



234 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

these contingencies, for me that had no friend to consult, ran 
too violently into the master-current of my constitutional 
despondency, ever to give way under any casual elation of 
success. Success, however, we really had at times; in slight 
skirmishes pretty often; and once, at least, as the reader will 
iind to his mortification, if he is wicked enough to take the 
side of the Philistines, a most smashing victory in a pitched 
battle. But even then, and whilst the hurrahs were yet ascend- 
ing from our jubilating lips, the freezing remembrance came 
back to my heart of that deadly depression which, duly at the 
coming round of the morning and evening watches, traveled 
with me like my shadow on our approach to the memorable 
bridge. . . . 

Both my brother and myself, for the sake of varying our 
intellectual amusements, occupied ourselves at times in gov- 
erning imaginary kingdoms. I do not mention this as anything 
unusual; it is a common resource of mental activity and of 
aspiring energies amongst boys. Hartley Coleridge,^^ for 
example, had a kingdom which he governed for many years; 
whether well or ill, is more than I can say. Kindly, I am sure, 
he would govern it; but, unless a machine had been invented 
for enabling him to write without effort (as was really done 
for our Fourth George during the pressure of illness), I fear 
that the public service must have languished deplorably for 
w^ant of the royal signature. In sailing past his own dominions, 
Avhat dolorous outcries would have saluted him from the shore 
— "Holloa, royal sir! here's the deuce to pay; a perfect lock 
there is, as tight as locked jaw, upon the course of our public 
business ; throats there are to be cut, from the product of ten 
jail-deliveries, and nobody dares to cut them, for want of the 
proper warrant; archbishoprics there are to be filled, and, 
because they are not filled, the whole nation is running helter- 
skelter into heresy ; — and all in consequence of your majesty's 

19. Hartley Coleridgfe. !rhe brilliant son of the poet Coleridge. 
Like his father, he was irresponsible and given to disappointing 
the expectations of his friends. 



DE QUIXCEY 235 

sacred laziness." Our governments were less remissly admin- 
istered; since each of us, by continued reports of improve- 
ments and gracious concessions to the folly or the weakness 
of our subjects, stimulated the zeal of his rival. And here, 
at least, there seemed to be no reason why I should come into 
collision with my brother. At any rate, I took pains not to 
do so. But all was in vain. My destiny was, to live in one 
eternal element of feud. 

My own kingdom was an island called Gombroon. But in 
what parallel of north or south latitude it lay, I concealed 
for a time as rigorously as ancient Rome through every 
century concealed her real name.^^ The object in this pro- 
visional concealment was, to regulate the position of my own 
territory by that of my brother's; for I was determined to 
place a monstrous world of waters between us, as the only 
chance (and a very poor one it proved) for compelling my 
brother to keep the peace. At length, for some reason 
unknown to me, and much to my astonishment, he located his 
capital city in the high latitude of 65 deg. north. That fact 
being once published and settled, instantly I smacked my little 
kingdom of Gombroon down into the tropics, 10 deg., I think, 
south of the line. Xow, at least, I was on the right side of the 
hedge, or so I flattered myself; for it struck me that my 
brother never would degrade himself by fitting' out a costly 
nautical expedition against poor little Gombroon; and how 
else could he get at me"? Surely the very fiend himself, if he 
happened to be in a high arctic latitude, would not indulge 
his malice so far as to follow its trail into the Tropic of Capri- 
corn. And what was to be got by such a freak? There was 
no Golden Fleece^^ in Gombroon. If the fiend or my brother 
fancied that^ for once they were in the wrong box; and there 

20. concealed, lier real name. A reference to leg-ends which 
related that there was a secret name of Rome (sometimes said 
to be Valentia) which for mystical relig-ious reasons was never 
openly used. 

21. G-olden Fleece. The precious object of the mythical expedi- 
tion of the Argonauts to Colchis. 



236 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD A:\IEEICAX 

was no variety of vegetable produce, for I never denied that 
the poor little island was only 270 miles in circuit. Think, 
then, of sailing through 75 deg. of latitude only to crack such 
a miserable little filbert as that. But my brother stunned me 
by explaining that, although his capital lay in lat. 65 deg. N., 
not the less his dominions swept southwards through a matter 
of 80 or 90 deg. ; and, as to the Tropic of Capricorn, much of 
it was his own private property. I was aghast at hearing that. 
It seemed that vast horns and promontories ran down from 
all parts of his dominions towards any country whatsoever, in 
either hemisphere — empire, or republic; monarchy, polyarchy, 
or anarchy — that he might have reasons for assaulting. 

Here in one moment vanished all that I had relied on for 
protection ; distance I had relied on, and suddenly I was found 
in close neighborhood to my most formidable enemy. Poverty 
I had relied on, and that was not denied; he granted the 
poverty, but it was dependent on the barbarism of the Gom- 
broonians. It seems that in the central forests of Gombroonia 
there were diamond mines, which my people, from their low 
condition of civilization, did not value, nor had any means 
of working. Farewell, therefore, on mij side, of all hopes of 
enduring peace, for here was established, in legal phrase, 
a lien for ever upon my island, and not upon its margin, but 
its very center, in favor of any invaders better able than the 
natives to make its treasures available. For, of old, it was an 
article in my brother^s code of morals — that, supposing a 
contest between any two parties, of which one possessed an 
article, whilst the other was better able to use it, the rightful 
property vested in the latter. As if you met a man with a 
musket, then you might justly challenge him to a trial in the 
art of making gunpowder ; which if you could make, and he 
could not, in that case the musket was de jure^^ yours. For 
what shadow of a right had the fellow to a noble instrument 
which he could not "maintain" in a serviceable condition, and 

22. de JTire. Lawfully. 



DE QUINCEY 237 

"feed" with its daily rations of powder and shot? Still, it 
may be fancied that, since all the relations between us as 
independent sovereigns (whether of war, or peace, or treaty) 
rested upon our own representations and official reports, it 
was surely within my competence to deny or qualify, as much 
as within his to assert. But, in reality, the law of the contest 
between us, as suggested by some instinct of propriety in my 
own mind, would not allow me to proceed in such a method. 
What he said was like a move at chess or draughts, which it 
was childish to dispute. The move being made, my business 
was — to face it, to parry it, to evade it, and, if I could, to 
overthrow it. I proceeded as a lawyer who moves as long as 
h^ can, not by blank denial of facts (or coming to an issue), 
but by demurring (i.e., admitting the allegations of fact, but 
otherwise interpreting their construction). It was the under- 
stood necessity of the case, that I must passively accept my 
brother's statements so far as regarded their verbal expres- 
sion; and, if I would extricate my poor islanders from their 
troubles, it must be by some distinction or evasion lying within 
this expression, or not blankly contradicting it.' 

^^How, and to what extent/' my brother asked, ^^did I raise 
taxes upon my subjects f' My first impulse was to say that I 
did not tax them at all, for I had a perfect horror of doing 
so; but prudence would not allow of my saying that; because 
it was too probable he would demand to know how, in that 
case, I maintained a standing army; and if I once allowed it 
to be supposed that I had none, there was an end for ever to 
the independence of my people. Poor things! they would 
have been invaded and dragooned in a month. I took some 
days, therefore, to consider that point, but at last replied that 
my people, being maritime, supported themselves mainly by a 
herring fishery, from which I deducted a part of the produce, 
and afterwards sold it for manure to neighboring nations. 
This last hint I borrowed from the conversation of a stranger 
who happened to dine one day at Greenhay, and mentioned 



238 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

that in Devonshire, or at least on the western coast of that 
country, near Ilfracombe, upon any excessive take of herrings, 
beyond what the markets could absorb, the surplus was applied 
to the land as a valuable dressing. It might be inferred from 
this account, however, that the arts must be in a languishing 
state, amongst a people that did not understand the process 
of salting fish; and my brother observed derisively, much to 
my grief, that a wretched ichthyophagous^^ people must make 
shocking soldiers, weak as water, and liable to be knocked over 
like nine-pins; whereas in his army not a man ever ate 
herrings, pilchards, mackerels, or, in fact, condescended to 
anything worse than sirloins of beef. 

At every step I had to contend for the honor and independ- 
ence of my islanders; so that early I came to understand the 
weight of Shakespeare's sentiment — 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown 124 

Oh, reader, do not laugh ! I lived for ever under the terror of 
two separate wars in two separate worlds; one' against the 
factory boys„in a real world of flesh and blood, of stones and 
brickbats, of flight and pursuit, that were anything but 
figurative; the other in a world purely aerial, where all the 
€ombats and the sufferings were absolute moonshine. And 
yet the simple truth is — that, for anxiety and distress of mind, 
the reality (which almost every morning's light brought 
round) was as nothing in comparison of that dream-kingdom 
which rose like a vapor from my own brain, and which appar- 
ently by the fiat of my will could be for ever dissolved. Ah ! 
but no ; I had contracted obligations to Gombroon ; I had 
submitted my conscience to a yoke; and in secret truth my 
will had no such autocratic power. Long contemplation of a 
shadow, earnest study for the welfare of that shadow, sym- 
pathy with the wounded sensibilities of that shadow under 
accumulated wrongs, these bitter experiences, nursed by 

23. Idithyophafifous. Fish-eating. 

24. Uneasy lies, etc. Henry Fourth, Part II, III, i. 



F 



DE QUIXCEY 239 

brooding thought, had gradually frozen that shadow into a 
rigor of reality far denser than the material realities of brass 
or granite. Who builds the most durable dwellings? asks the 
laborer^^ in Hamlet; and the answer is, The gTavedigger. He 
builds for corruption ; and yet Ms tenements are incorruptible ; 
"the houses which he makes last to doomsday." Who is it 
that seeks for concealment? Let him hide himself in the 
unsearchable chambers of light — of light which at noonday, 
more effectually than any gloom, conceals the very brightest 
stars, rather than in labyrinths of darkness the thickest. What 
criminal is that who wishes to abscond from public justice? 
Let him hurry into the frantic publicities of London, and by 
no means into the quiet privacies of the country. So^ and 
upon the analogy of these cases, we may understand that, to 
make a strife overwhelming by a thousandfold to the feelings, 
it must not deal with gross material interests, but with such 
as rise into the world of dreams, and act upon the nerves 
through spiritual, and not through fleshly, torments. Mine, in 
the present case, rose suddenly, like a rocket, into their merid- 
ian altitude, by means of a hint furnished to my brother 
from a Scottish advocate's reveries. . . . 

Chance directed the eye of my brother, one day, upon that 
part of the work in which Lord M.^^ unfolds his hypothesis 
that originally the human race had been a variety of the ape. 
On which hypothesis, by the way. Dr. Adam Clarke's^^ substi- 
tution of ape for serpent, in translating the word nachash 
(the brute tempter of Eve), would have fallen to the ground, 
since this would simply have been the case of one human 
being tempting another. It followed inevitably, according to 
I Lord M., however painful it might be to human dignity, that, 

25. tlie laborer. The grave-dig-g-er in Act V, scene i. 

26. Iiord M. Lord Monboddo (James Burnet), author of a once 
famous book on The Origin and Progress of Language. In the 
preceding (omitted) passag'e De Quincey gives some account of 

ttiim. 

27. Adam Clarke. A theologian who made a widely used com- 
mentary on the Bible. 



240 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

in this their early stage of briitality, men must have had tails. 
My brother mused upon this reverie, and, in a few days, pub- 
lished an extract from some scoundrel's travels in Gombroon, 
according to which the Gombroonians had not yet emerged 
from this early condition of apedom. They, it seems, were 
still homines caudati.^^ Overwhelming to me and stunning was 
the ignominy of this horrible discovery. Lord M. had not 
overlooked the natural question, In what way did men get rid 
of their tails? To speak the truth, they never would have got 
rid of them had they continued to run wild ; but growing civili- 
zation introduced arts, and the arts introduced sedentary habits. 
By these it was, by the mere necessity of continually sitting 
down, that men gradually wore off their tails! Well, and 
what should hinder the Gombroonians from sitting down? 
Their tailors and shoemakers would and could, I hope, sit 
down, as well as those of Tigrosylvania.^^ Why not? Ay, 
but my brother had insisted already that they had no tailors, 
that they had no shoemakers; which then I did not care much 
about, as it merely put back the clock of our history — throw- 
ing us into an earlier, and therefore, perhaps, into a more 
warlike stage of society. But, as the case stood now, this 
want of tailors, etc., showed clearly that the process of sitting i 
down, so essential to the ennobling of the race, had not com- 
menced. My brother, with an air of consolation, suggested i 
that I might even now, without an hour's delay, compel the 
whole nation to sit down for six hours a day, which would 
always "make a beginning." But the truth would remain as 
before — ^viz., that I was the king of a people that had tails; 
and the slow, slow process by which, in a course of many cen- 
turies, their posterity might rub them off, a hope of vintages 
never to be enjoyed by any generations that are yet heaving in i 
sight — that was to me the worst form of despair. 

Still there was one resource: if I "didn't like it" — meaning 

28. Iiomines candati. Tailed men. 

29. TigTosylvania. The name of the brother's kingdom. 



DE QUINCEY 241 

the state of things in Gombroon — I might "abdicate." Yes, I 
knew that. I might abdicate; and, once having cut the con- 
nection between myself and the poor abject islanders, I might 
seem to have no further interest in the degradation that 
affected them. After such a disruption between us, what was 
it to me if they had even three tails apiece ? Ah, that was fine 
talking; but this connection with my poor subjects had grown 
up so slowly and so genially, in the midst of struggles so con- 
stant against the encroachments of my brother and his rascally 
people; we had suffered so much together; and the filaments 
connecting them with my heart were so aerially fine and fan- 
tastic, but for that reason so inseverable, that I abated nothing 
of my anxiety on their account ; making this difference only in 
my legislation and administrative cares, that I pursued them 
more in a spirit of despondency, and retreated more shyly 
from communicating them. • . • 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 

[Thomas Babington Macaulay was barn of a well-to-do Leicester- 
shire family in 1800. As a child he showed great precocity, at 
the age of seven beg"inning to write a "universal history." He 
went through Cambridge University, was admitted to the bar, 
and at the age of thirty became a Member of Parliament. Mean- 
time, in 1825 he had contributed an essay on Milton to the 
Edinburgh Review which at once made his fame as an essayist; 
thereafter, though frequently engaged in public affairs, he became 
the most brilliant representative in England of the review type 
of essay, and the leading contributor to the Edinburgh. In 1848 
the first volume of his History of England appeared, a work which 
made Macaulay also the most popular of historians. He is further 
remembered as a poet for his Lays of Ancient Rome. He had an 
extraordinary memory, was a brilliant conversationalist and 
letter-writer, an effective parliamentary orator, and a favorite 
in social life; on the other hand, his tendency to dogmatism and 
exaggeration gave him a reputation for prejudice, and the same 
tendency makes it necessary to read his historic^.1 and critical 
statements with some caution. He was made Baron Macaulay of 
Rothley in 1857; in 1859 he died, and was buried in Westminster 
Abbey. ] 



MILTON AND THE PURITANS^ 

We would speak first of the Puritans^ the most remark- 
able body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced- 
The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the 
surface. He that runs may read them; nor have there been 

1, This is the closing sedition of the essay on Milton (see 
above). The essays of the Edinburgh Review were in the first in- 
stance reviews of books (see Introduction, page 13), and this one 
took its origin in a recent publication of a translation of Milton's 
Latin treatise "On Christian Doctrine," which had been discovered 
only in 1823. Macaulay declared his intention to make the dis- 
covery the occasion of a general account of Milton, as the 
Capuchin monks "never choose to preach on the life and miracles 
of a saint, till they have awakened the devotional feelings of 
their auditors by exhibiting some relic of him." The significance 
of this concluding section is chiefly in its interpretation of the 
age of Milton as represented by the great social and religious 
groups of seventeenth century England. 

242 






MACAULAY 243 

wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out. 
For many years after the Restoration, they v/ere the theme of 
unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the 
utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, at the 
time when the press and the stage were most licentious. They 
were not men of letters; they were, as a body, unpopular; 
they could not defend themselves, and the public would not 
take them under its protection. They were therefore aband- 
oned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists 
and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, 
their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their 
long graces, 2 their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases 
which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of 
human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were 
indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the 
laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learnt. 
And he who approaches this subject should carefully guard 
against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already 
misled so many excellent writers. 

Ecco il fonte del risa, ed ecco il rio 
Che mortali perigli in se contiene: 
Hor qui tener a f ren nostro desio, 
Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene.s 

Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed 
their measures through a long series of eventful years, who 
formed out of the most unpromising materials the finest army 
■that Europe had ever seen, who trampled down king, church, 
and aristocracy, who, in the short intervals of domestic sedi- 
tion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on 
the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their 
absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of free- 

2. graces. That is, prayers before eating. 

3. Ecco il fonte, etc. "This is the fount of laughter, this the 
Jtream which contains mortal peril: here it is fitting that we 
should hold our desire in check and be exceeding cautious." 
:From Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, Book XV.) 



244 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 



J 



masonry or the dresses of friars. We regTet that these badges 
were not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose 
courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations 
had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the 
adherents of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for 
which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, 
if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the 
play,* turn from the specious caskets which contain only the 
death's head and the fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden 
chest which conceals the treasure. 

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar 
character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and 
eternal' interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general 
terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed 
every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power 
nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too 
minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with 
them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt 
the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the 
pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional 
glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired 
to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and to commune 
with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for 
terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest 
and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared 
with the boundless interval which separated the whole race 
from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. 
They recognized no title to superiority but his favor; and, 
confident of that favor, they despised all the accomplishments 
and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted 
with the works of philosophers and poets,^ they were deeply 

4. Basganlo in tlie play. The Merchant of Venice, III, ii. 

5. If they w«re unacquainted, etc. The passage beg^inning here 
Is a characteristic one for Macaulay's style, — its balanced 
clauses, tending to a kind of rhythm, and its vivid concrete illus- 
trations of a leading idea. 



MACAULAY 245 

read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found 
in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of 
Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train 
of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over 
them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their 
diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away. On 
the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked 
down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a 
more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime 
language, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and 
priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very 
meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and 
terrible importance belonged, on whose slightest action the 
spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest, 
who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, 
to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and 
earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted 
politicians ascribed to earthly causes had been ordained on his 
account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and 
decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will 
by the pen of the Evangelist and the hai-p of the prophet. 
He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp 
of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of 
no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was 
for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had 
been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shud- 
dered at the sufferings of her expiring God. 

Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one 
all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, the other 
j proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in 
the dust before his Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of 
his king. In his devotional retirement he prayed with con- 
vulsions and groans and tears. He was half-maddened by 
j glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or 
the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the 



246 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting 
fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the scepter 
of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood,® he cried in the bitter- 
ness of his soul that God had hid his face from him. But 
when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for 
war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no per- 
ceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the 
godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them 
but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. 
But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in 
the hall of debate or in the field of battle. These fanatics 
brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment 
and an immutability of purpose which some writers have 
thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were 
in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their 
feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. 
One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and 
hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors and 
pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, 
their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this 
world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics,*^ had cleared their 
minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised 
them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It 
sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never 
to choose unwise means. They went through the world, like 
Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail,^ crushing and 
trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings but 
having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to 



6. Vane . . . Fleetwood- Sir Henry Vane and Charles Fleet- 
wood, Parliamentary leaders in opposition to Charles I. 

7. Stoics. Philosophers contemptuous of suffering. 

8. Sir Artegral . . . Talus. In Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book 
V. canto 1: 

His name was Talus, made of iron mould, 
Immovable, resistless, without end; 
"WTio in his hand an iron flail did hold. 
With which he threshed out falsehood, and 
did truth unfold. 



MACAULAY 247 

fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any 
weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier. 

Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. 
We perceive the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the 
sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that 
the tone of their minds was often injured by straining after 
things too high for mortal reach; and we know that, in spite 
of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the worst 
vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant auster- 
ity, — that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their 
jDunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominies and their 
Escobars.^ Yet, when all circumstances are taken into con- 
sideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a 
|wise, an honest, and an useful body. 

The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty mainly 
because it was the cause of religion. There was another 
party, by no means numerous, but distinguished by learning 
and ability, which acted with them on very different principles. 
We speak of those whom Cromwell was accustomed to call the 
Heathens, men who were, in the phraseology of that time, 
lioubting Thomases or careless Gallios^^ with regard to reli- 
rious subjects, but passionate worshippers of freedom. 
Heated by the study of ancient literature, they set up their 
country as their idol, and proposed to themselves the heroes 
Df Plutarch^^ as their examples. They seem to have borne 



9. Dunstans . , . De Montforts, etc. All these were power- 

|*ul (and, in Macaulay's view, more or less cruel and unscrupulous) 

'epresentatives of the Catholic Church in the state. St. Dunstan 

Ijvsls Archbishop of Canterbury in the 10th century: Simon de 

AContfort was a French commander who in 1208 led the persecu- 

.ion of the heretical religionists called Albig-enses; St. Dominic 

vas a Spaniard of the 12th and 13th centuries, the founder of the 

•eligious order of the Dominicans; Escobar was a Spanish Jesuit 

heologian of the 17th century. 

10. Thomases . . . G-alUos. See 7o/in 20:24-25 and /4c*j 18:12-17. 

11. FlTLtarch.. Author of Lives of Greek and Roman heroes, 
written about 100 a.d. 



248 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

some resemblance to the Brissotines^^ ^f h^q French Revolu- 
tion. But it is not very easy to draw the line of distinction 
between them and their devout associates, whose tone and 
manner they sometimes found it convenient to affect, and 
sometimes, it is probable, imperceptibly adopted. 

We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt to speak 
of. them, as we have spoken of their antagonists, with perfect 
candor. We shall not charge upon a whole party the prof- 
ligacy and baseness of the horse-boys, gamblers, and bravoes, 
whom the hope of license and plunder attracted from all the 
dens of Whitefriars^^ to the standard of Charles, and who 
disgraced their associates by excesses which, under the stricter 
discipline of the Parliamentary armies, were never tolerated. 
We will select a more favorable specimen. Thinking as we 
do that the cause of the King was the cause of bigotry and 
tyranny, we yet cannot refrain from looking with compla- 
cency on the character of the honest old cavaliers. We feel a 
national pride in comparing them with the instruments which 
the despots of other countries are compelled to employ, — with 
the mutes who throng their antechambers, and the janissaries^* 
who mount guard at their gates. Our royalist countrymen 
were not heartless, dangling courtiers, bowing at every step 
and simpering at every word. They were not mere machines 
for destruction, dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill, 
intoxicated into valor, defending without love, destroying 
without hatred. There was a freedom in their subserviency, 
a nobleness in their very degradation. The sentiment of indi- 
vidual independence was strong within them. They were' 
indeed misled, but by no base or selfish motive. Compassion 
and romantic honor, the prejudices of childhood, and the 
venerable names of history, threw over them a spell potent asi 

I 

12. Brissotines. Followers of Brissot, a leading- member of the' 
revolutionary Convention; he was guillotined in 1793. His party| 
were also called "Girondists." *^ 

13. Whitefriars. An ill-reputed district of London. 

14. janissaries. Troops of the Turkish Sultan. 



MACAULAY 249 

that of Duessa;^^ and, like the Red-Cross Knight, they thought 
that they were doing battle for an injured beauty, while they 
defended a false and loathsome sorceress. In truth- they 
scarcely entered at all into the merits of the political question. 
It was not for a treacherous king or an intolerant church that 
they fought, but for the old banner which had waved in so 
I many battles over the heads of their fathers, and for the altars 
at which they had received the hands of their brides. Though 
I nothing could be more erroneous than their political opinions, 
'they possessed, in a far greater degree than their adversaries, 
those qualities which are the grace of private life. With many 
of the vices of the Round Table, they had also many of its 
'virtues, — courtesy, generosity, veracity, tenderness, and respect 
for women. They had far more both of profound and of 
polite learning than the Puritans. Their manners were more 
I engaging, their tempers more amiable, their tastes more ele- 
' gant, and their households more cheerful. 
j Milton did not strictly belong to any of the classes which we 
have described. He was not a Puritan. He was not a free- 
thinker. He was not a Royalist. In his character the noblest 
qualities of every party were combined in harmonious union. 
From the Parliament and from the Court, from the conven- 
ticle^^ and from the Gothic cloister, from the gloomy and 
' sepulchral circles of the Roundheads and from the Christmas 
j revel of the hospitable Cavalier, his nature selected and drew 
]io itself whatever was great and good, while it rejected all 
I the base and pernicious ingredients by which those finer ele- 
ments were defiled. Like the Puritans, he lived 

As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye.i7 

; Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed on an Almighty 
I Judge and an eternal reward. And hence he acquired their 

^ 15. Duessa . . . tlie Bed-Cross ^Cnlfiflit. In the Faerie Queene, 
Book i. 

16. conventicle. Meeting--house of a dissenting sect. 

17. As ever, etc. The last line (with "my" changed to "his") of 
Milton's Sonnet on Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-three. 



250 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

contempt of external circumstances, their fortitude, their tran- 
quillity, their inflexible resolution. But not the coolest skeptic 
or the most profane scoffer was more perfectly free from the 
contagion of their frantic delusions, their savage manners, their 
ludicrous jargon, their scorn of science, and their aversion to 
pleasure. Hating tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had 
nevertheless all the estimable and ornamental qualities which 
were almost entirely monopolized by the party of the tyrant. I 
There was none who had a stronger sense of the value of liter- 
ature, a finer relish for every elegant amusement, or a more 
chivalrous delicacy of honor and love. Though his opinions 
were democratic, his tastes and his associations were such as 
harmonize best with monarchy and aristocracy. He was under 
the influence of all the feelings by which the gallant Cavaliers 
were misled. But of those feelings he was the master and not | 
the slave. Like the hero of Hpmer,^^ he enjoyed all the pleas 
ures of fascination, but he was not fascinated. He listened | 
to the song of the Sirens, yet he glided by without being 
seduced to their fatal shore. He tasted the cup of Circe,^^ 
but he bore about him a sure antidote against the effects of 
its bewitching sweetness. The illusions which captivated his 
imagination never impaired his reasoning powers. The states- 
man was proof against the splendor, the solemnity, and the 
romance which enchanted the poet. Any person who will con- 
trast the sentiments expressed in his treatises on Prelacy^^ 
with the exquisite lines on ecclesiastical architecture and music 



18. liero of Homer. Ulysses, who had his ears stopped while 
his ship passed within sound of the Sirens' song. 

19. Circe. An enchantress visited by Ulysses and his crew (in 
the Odyssey). 

20. Prelacy. Clerical authority in the Established Church. In 
1641 Milton published two tracts, one called "of Prelatical Epis- 
copacy," the other "Reason of Church Government Urged against, 
Prelaty." 



I 



MACAULAY 251 

in the Penseroso,'^'^ which was published about the same time, 
will understand our meaning% This is an inconsistency which, 
more than anything else, raises his character in our estimation, 
because it shows how many private tastes and feelings he 
sacrificed, in order to do what he considered his duty to man- 
kind. It is the very struggle of the noble Othello.^^ His heart 
relents, but his hand is firm. He does nought in hate, but all 
I in honor. He kisses the beautiful deceiver before he destroys 
her. 

i That from which the public character of Milton derives its 

great and peculiar splendor, still remains to be mentioned. 

. If he exerted himself to overthrow a forsworn king and a per- 

|secuting hierarchy,^^ he exerted himself in conjunction with 

'others. But the glory of the battle which he fought for the 

species of freedom which is the most valuable, and which was 

then the least understood, the freedom of the human mind, is 

jail his own. Thousands and tens of thousands among his con- 

' temporaries raised their voices against ship-money^* and the 

I Star Chamber. But there were few indeed who discerned the 

Imore fearful evils of moral and intellectual slavery, and the 

benefits which would result from the liberty of the press and 

the unfettered exercise of private judgment. These were the 



21. Fenseroso. "II Penseroso" was published in 1634. Macaulay 
♦refers to the lines: 

But let my due feet never fail 

To walk the studious cloister's pale. 

And love the hig'h embowed roof, 

With antique windows massy-proof. 

And storied windows richly dight. 

Casting- a dim religious light. 

There let the pealing organ blow 

To the full-voiced quire below, 

In service with and anthems clear, 

As may with sweetness, through mine ear. 

Dissolve me into ecstasies, 

And bring all heaven before mine eyes. 

22. Othello. Who killed his wife Desdemona because he be- 
|Ueved her guilty. For the kiss, see Othello, V, ii, line 15. 

23. Merarcliy. Body of church officials. 

i 24. ship-money. A tax levied by the King upon certain com- 
imodities. In 1637 those in opposition to it resisted payment in. 
'the court of the "Star Chamber." 



252 ESSAYS— EX^GLISH and AMERICAN 

objects which Milton justly conceived to be the most important. 
He was desirous that the people should think for themselves 
as well as tax themselves, and should be emancipated from the f 
dominion of prejudice as well as from that of Charles. He 
knew that those who, with the best intentions, overlooked 
these schemes of reform, and contented themselves with pulling 
down the King and imprisoning the malignants, acted like the f 
heedless brothers in his own poem,^^ who, in their eagerness to 
disperse the train of the sorcerer, neglected the means of liber- 
ating the captive. They thought only of conquering when 
they should have thought of disenchanting. 

Oh, ye mistook ! Ye should have snatched his wand 
And bound him fast. Without the rod reversed, 
And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
We cannot free the lady that sits here 
Bound in strong fetters fixed and motionless. 

To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward, to break the 
ties which bound a stupefied people to the seat of enchantment,^ 
was the noble aim of Milton. To this all his public conduct 
was directed. For this he joined the Presbyterians; for this 
he forsook them. He fought their perilous battle, but he 
turned away with disdain from their insolent triumph. He 
saw that they, like those whom they had vanquished, were 
hostile to the liberty of thought. He therefore joined the 
Independents, and called upon Cromwell to break the secular 
chain and to save free conscience from the paw of the Presby- 
terian wolf. 2^ With a view to the same great object, he 
attacked the licensing system,^^ in that sublime treatise^^ 
which every statesman should wear as a sign upon his hand 

25. Ms own poem. The masque of Comus, The quotation that 
follows is from lines 815-819. 

26. Presbyterian wolf. Macaulay borrows this from Dryden, 
who, in his alleg-ory of "The Hind and the Panther," had repre- 
sented the Presbyterian sect as a wolf, 

27. licensing system. The system by which freedom of printing: 
was limited throug-h a kind of censorship. 

28. tliat sublime treatise. The Areopagiiica, published 1644. 



MACAULAY 253 

Dd as frontlets between his eyes.^^ His attacks were, in 
eneral, directed less against particular abuses than against 
lose deeply-seated errors on which almost all abuses are 
ounded, — the servile worship of eminent men and the 
^rational dread of innovation. 

That he might shake the foundations of these debasing 
entiments more effectually, he always selected for himself the 
oldest literary services. He never came up in the rear when 
he outworks had been carried and the breach entered. He 
)ressed into the forlorn hope. At the beginning of the 
hanges, he wrote with incomparable energy and eloquence 
gainst the bishops. But, when his opinion seemed likely to 
)revail, he passed on to other subjects, and abandoned prelacy 
o the crowd of writers who now hastened to insult a falling 
)arty. There is no more hazardous enterprise than that of 
•earing the torch of truth into those dark and infected recesses 
n which no light has ever shone. But it was the choice and 
he pleasure of Milton to penetrate the noisome vapors, and 
o brave the terrible explosion. Those who most disapprove 
'f his opinions must respect the hardihood with which he 
laintained them. He, in general, left to others the credit of 
xpounding and defending the popular parts of his religious 
-nd political creed. He took his own stand upon those which 
he great body of his countrymen reprobated as criminal or 
lerided as paradoxical. He stood up for divorce and regi- 
ide. He attacked the prevailing systems of education. His 
adiant and beneficent career resembled that of the god of 
ight and fertility. 

Nitor in adversum; nee me, qui csetera, vincit 
^ Impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi.3o 



29. sign upon Ms liand, etc. See Deuteronomy 11:18. 

30. Vitor in adversttm, etc. From a speech of Phoebus Apollo, 
he sun-g-od, in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book ii: "I strug-gle against 
jie adverse movement, nor does the force which overcomes every- 
ning else avail against me, as I am borne out ag-ainst the revolv- 
ig sphere," 



254 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton 
should in our time be so little read. As compositions, they 
deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become 
acquainted with the full power of the English language. They 
abound with passages compared with which the finest decla- 
mations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect 
field of cloth-of-gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroid- 
ery. Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost has 
the great poet ever risen higher than in those parts of his 
controversial works in which his feelings, excited by conflict, 
find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, 
to borrow his own majestic language, "a sevenfold chorus of 
hallelujahs and harping symphonies." We had intended to 
look more closely at these performances, to analyze the peculi- 
arities of the diction, to dwell at some length on the sublime 
wisdom of the Areopagitica and the nervous^^ rhetoric of the 
Iconoclast, ^^ and to point out some of those magnificent 
passages which occur in the Treatise of Reformation and the 
Animadversions on the Remonstrant. But the length to which 
our remarks have already extended renders this impossible. 

We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear ourselves 
away from the subject. The days immediately following the 
publication of this relic^^ of Milton appear to be peculiarly 
set apart and consecrated to his memory. And we shall 
scarcely be censured if, on this his festival, we be found 
lingering near his shrine, how worthless soever may be the 
offering which we bring to it. While this book lies on our 
table, we seem to be contemporaries of the writer. We are 
transported a hundred and fifty years back. We can almost 
fancy that we are visiting him in his small lodging; that we 
see him sitting at the old organ beneath the faded green hang- 

31. nervousw Vigorous (based on the old meaning- of "nerves/* 
sinews). 

32. the Iconoclas'L Published in 1649, with the Greek title 
Eikonoklastes; a defense of the execution of Charles I. The two 
tracts next mentioned were published in 1641. 

33. this relic. See note on page 242. 



MACAULAY 255 

ings, — that we can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolling 
in vain to find the day, — that we are reading in the lines of his 
noble countenance the proud and mournful history of his 
glory and his affliction. We image to ourselves the breathless 
silence in which we should listen to his slightest word, the 
passionate veneration with which we should kneel to kiss his 
hand and weep upon it, the earnestness with which we should 
endeavor to console him — if indeed such' a spirit should need 
consolation — for the neglect of an age unworthy of his talents 
and his virtues, the eagerness with which we should contest 
with his daughters, or with his Quaker friend Elwood,^^ the 
privilege of reading Homer to him, or of taking down the 
immortal accents which flowed from his lips. 

These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we cannot be 
ashamed of th-em, nor shall we be sorry if what we have 
written shall in any degree excite them in other minds. We 
are not much in the habit of idolizing either the living or the 
dead; and we think that there is no more certain indication 
of a weak and ill-regulated intellect than that propensity 
which, for want of a better name, we will venture to christen 
Boswellism.^^ But there are a few characters which have stood 
the closest scrutiny and the severest tests, which have been 
tried in the furnace and have proved pure, which have been 
weighed in the balance and have not been found wanting, 
which have been declared sterling by the general consent of 
mankind, and which are visibly stamped with the image and 
superscription^^ of the Most High. These great men we 
trust that we know how to prize; and of these was Milton. 
The sight of his books, the sound of his name, are pleasant to 
US. His thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and flowers 



34. Elwood. A young Quaker who, in Milton's days of blindness 
sand retirement, took lodgings near him, and came to read to him 
' every afternoon. 

35. Boswellisnu Excessive hero-worship, such as Boswell 
I showed for Dr. Johnson. 

36. iin&g'e and superscrip^tion. See Matthew 22:20. 



256 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

which the Virgin Martyr^^ of Massinger sent down from the 
gardens of Paradise to the earth, and which were distinguished 
from the productions of other soils not only by superior 
bloom and sweetness but by miraculous efficacy to invigorate 
and to heal. They are powerful, not only to delight, but to 
elevate and purify. Nor do we envy the man who can study 
either the life or the writings of the great poet and patriot, 
Avithout aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works 
with which his genius has enriched our literature, but the zeal 
with which he labored for the public good, the fortitude with 
which he endured every private calamity, the lofty disdain 
with which he looked down on temptations and dangers, the 
deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants, and the 
faith which he so sternly kept with his country and with his 
fame. 

37. Virgrin Martyr. In a play of the same name, based on early- 
martyr legends; published 1622. 



THOMAS CARLYLE 

[Thomas Carlyle was born in the village of Ecclefechan, Scot- 
land, in 1795, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh. 
After various experiments as teacher, law student, etc., he took 
up the study of German, and began to write on German subjects 
for magazines and reviews; later he became a regular contributor 
to the Edinburgh Review, the leading critical journal of the period. 
From 1837 he lived in London, where he continued his literary 

j work and also did some lecturing, — his most notable lectures 
being those on "Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in His- 
tory," published in 1841. Meantime he had made his reputation 

j as a moral philosopher and a historian by Sartor Resartus (1833-35) 
and The French Revolution (1837). In later years, while con- 

' tinning his historical studies, Carlyle devoted himself increas- 
ingly to social and political questions, concerning which he 

I held pessimistic, or at any rate somber, views which rather 
impaired than increased his public influence. Saddened also very 
greatly by the death of his wife, Jane Welsh Carlyle, in 1866, 
he spent his last period in much solitude and gloom; at the 
same time he maintained warm friendships, of which one of the 
most noteworthy was that with Emerson in America. He died 
in 1881. Carlyle's style often repels rather than attracts readers, 
through its eccentricity and crabbedness, which have won for 
it the satiric term "Carlylese"; and it is never commended as 
a model for other writers; at its best, however, it rises to 
splendid eloquence, and everywhere brings the reader close to 
the deep feeling and thinking of one of the strongest person- 
alities of nineteenth century literature.] 



SHAKESPEARE^ 

As Dante^ the Italian man, was sent into our world to 
embody musically the religion of the Middle Ages, the relig- 
ion of our modern Europe, its inner lif-e; so Shakespeare, we 
may say, embodies for us the outer life of our Europe as 

1. This is the second part of the third lecture in Heroes and 
Hero-Worslvip, the real subject of which is Great Men; the first part 
is devoted to Dante, the chief poet of the Middle Ages, whom Car- 
lyle finely contrasts with Shakespeare, the latter representing^ 
the splendid but more worldly spirit of the Renaissance era. 

257 



258 ESSAYS— E:NGLISH and AMERICAN 

developed then, its chivalries, courtesies, humors, ambitions, 
^vhat practical way of thinking, acting, looking at the world, 
men then had. As in Homer we may still construe old Greece; 
so in Shakespeare and Dante, after thousands of years, what 
our modern Europe was, in faith and in practice, will still be 
legible. Dante has given us the faith or soul; Shakespeare, 
in a not less noble way, has given us the practice or body. 
This latter also w^e were to have; a man was sent for it, the 
man Shakespeare. Just when that chivalry way of life had 
reached its last finish, and was on the point of breaking down 
into slow or swift dissolution, as we now see it everywhere, this 
other sovereign poet, with his seeing eye, with his perennial 
singing voice, was sent to take note of it, to give long-enduring 
record of it. Two fit men: Dante, deep, fierce as the central 
fire of the world; Shakespeare, wide, placid, far-seeing as the 
sun, the upper light of the world. Italy produced the one 
Avorld- voice ; w^e English had the honor of producing the other. 
Curious enough how, as if it were by mere accident, this man 
came to us. I think always, so great, quiet, complete and self- 
sufficing is this Shakespeare, had the Warwickshire Squire^ not 
prosecuted him for deer-stealing, we had perhaps never heard 
of him as a poet ! The woods and skies, the rustic life of man 
in Stratford there, had been enough for this man ! But indeed 
that strange outbudding of our whole English existence, which 
w^e call the Elizabethan Era, did not it too come as of its own 
accord? The "Tree Igdrasil"^ buds and withers by its own 
laws, — too deep for our scanning. Yet it does bud and wither, 
and every bough and leaf of it is there, by fixed eternal laws ; 
not a Sir Thomas Lucy but comes at the hour fit for him. 

2. Warwlcksliire Squire. Sir Thomas Lucy, who, according: 
to a widespread but unhistoric tradition, was responsible for the 
young Shakespeare's leaving Stratford after an escapade of 
deer-poaching on the Lucy estate. 

3. Tree IgTdrasil. Carlyle alludes to a Scandinavian myth 
which he had explained in the first lecture: "All life is figured 
by them as a tree. Igdrasil, the ash-tree of existence, has its 
roots deep down in the kingdoms of Hela or Death; its trunk 
reaches up heaven-high, spreads its boughs over the whole uni- 
verse." 



CARLYLE 259 

Curious, I say, and not sufficiently considered : how everything" 
does cooperate with all; not a leaf rotting on the highway but 
is indissoluble portion of solar and stellar systems ; no thought, 
word, or act of man but has sprung withal out of all men, and 
works sooner or later, recognizably or irrecognizably, on all 
men ! It is all a tree : circulation of sap and influences, mutual 
communication of every minutest leaf with the lowest talon 
of a root, with every other greatest and minutest portion of 
the whole. The Tree Igdrasil, that has its roots down in the 
kingdoms of Hela and Death, and whose boughs overspread 
the highest Heaven! — 

In some sense it may be said that this glorious Elizabethan 
Era with its Shakespeare, as the outcome and flowerage of all 
which had preceded it, is itself attributable to the Catholicism 
of the Middle Ages. The Christian faith, which was the theme 
of Dante's song, had produced this practical life which Shakes- 
peare was to sing. For religion then, as it now and always is, 
was the soul of practice; the primary vital fact in men's life. 
And remark here, as rather curious, that Middle-Age Catholi- 
cism was abolished, so far as Acts of Parliament could abolish 
it, before Shakespeare, the noblest product of it, made his 
appearance. He did make his appearance nevertheless. Nature 
at her own time, with Catholicism or what else might be neces- 
sary, sent him forth; taking small thought of Acts of Parlia- 
ment. King Henrys, Queen Elizabeths go their way; and 
Nature too goes hers. Acts of Parliament, on the whole, are 
small, notwithstanding the noise they make. What Act of 
Parliament, debate at St. Stephen's,* on the hustings^ or else- 
where, was it that brought this Shakespeare into being? No 
dining at Freemasons' Tavern,^ opening subscription lists, 
selling of shares, and infinite other jangling and true or false 

4. St;. Steplien's. St. Stephen's Hall, used by the House of 
Commons. 

5. hustinsrs. A platform for the delivery of campaign 
speeches. 

6. Freemasons' Tavern. A popular London meeting-place. 



260 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

endeavoring ! This Elizabethan Era, and all its nobleness 
and blessedness, came without proclamation, preparation of 
ours. Priceless Shakespeare was a free gift of Nature; given 
altogether silently; — received altogether silently, as if it had 
been a thing of little account. And yet, very literally, it is a 
priceless thing. One shqiild look at that side of matters too. 

Of this Shakespeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one some- 
times hears a little idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right 
one; I think the best judgment not of this country only, but 
of Europe at large, is slowly pointing to the conclusion that 
Shakespeare is the chief of all poets hitherto, the greatest 
intellect who, in our recorded world, has left record of him- 
self in the way of literature. On the whole, I know not such 
.a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all 
the characters of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of 
depth; placid joyous strength; all things imaged in that great 
soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil unfathomable 
sea! It has been said that in the constructing of Shakes- 
peare's dramas there is, apart from all other "faculties" as 
they are called, an understanding manifested, equal to that 
in Bacon's Novum OrganumJ That is true; and it is not a 
truth that strikes everyone. It would become more apparent 
if we tried, any of us for himself, how, out of Shakespeare's 
dramatic materials, we could fashion such a result ! The built 
house seems all so fit, — every way as it should be, as if it came 
there by its own law and the nature of things, — ^we forget the 
rude disorderly quarry it was shaped from. The very per- 
fection of the house, as if Nature herself had made it, hides 
the builder's merit. Perfect, more perfect than any other man, 
we may call Shakespeare in this: he discerns, knows as by 
instinct, what condition he works under, what his materials 
are, what his own force and its relation to them is. It is not 
a transitory glance of insight that will suffice; it is deliberate 
illumination of the whole matter; it is a calmly seeing eye; a 

7. Novum Orgranum. See the note on Bacon, pag'e 19. 



CARLYLE 261 

great intellect, in short. How a man, of some wide thing 
that he has witnessed, will construct a narrative, what kind 
of picture and delineation he will give of it, is the best meas- 
ure you could get of what intellect is in the man. Which 
circumstance is vital and shall stand prominent ; which unessen- 
tial, fit to be suppressed ; where is the true beginning, the true 
sequence and ending? To find out this, you task the whole 
force of insight that is in the man. He must understand the 
thing; according to the depth of his understanding will the 
fitness of his answer be. You will try him so. Does like join 
itself to like; does the spirit of method stir in that confusion, 
so that its embroilment becomes order? Can the man say, 
Fiat lux. Let there be light; and out of chaos make a world? 
Precisely as there is light in himself, will he accomplish this. 

Or indeed, we may say again, it is in what I called portrait- 
painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, 
that Shakespeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes 
out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm cre- 
ative perspicacity of Shakespeare. The thing he looks at 
reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart, and 
generic secret:^ it dissolves itself as in light before him, so 
that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we 
said: poetic creation, what is this too but seeing the thing 
sufficiently? The word that will describe the thing follows of 
itself from such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not 
Shakespeare's morality, his valor, candor, tolerance, truthful- 
ness, his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can 
triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as 
the world ! No twisted, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting 
all objects with its own convexities and concavities; a per- 
fectly level mirror ; — that is to say withal, if we will understand 
it, a man justly related to all things and men, a good man. 
It is truly a lordly spectacle how this great soul takes in all 
kinds of men and objects, a Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a 

8. g*eneric secret. Secret of its nature. 



262 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Coriolanus, sets them all forth to us in their round complete- 
ness; loving, just, the equal brother of all. Novum Organum, 
and all the intellect you will find in Bacon, is of a quite 
secondary order; earthly, material, poor in comparison with 
this. Among modern men, one finds, in strictness, almost 
nothing of the same rank. Goethe alone, since the days of 
Shakespeare, reminds me of it. Of him too you say that he 
saw the object; you may say what he himself says of Shakes- 
peare: "His characters are like watches with dial-plates of 
transparent crystal; they show you the hour like others, and 
the inward mechanism also is all visible.'' 

The seeing eye ! It is this that discloses the inner harmony 
of things; what Nature meant, what musical idea Nature has 
wrapped up in these often rough embodiments. Something 
she did mean. To the seeing eye that something were discern- 
ible. Are they base, miserable things? You can laugh over 
them, you can weep over them; you can in some way or other 
genially relate yourself to them; — ^you can, at lowest, hold 
your peace about them, turn away your own and others' face 
from them, till the hour come for practically exterminating and 
extinguishing them ! At bottom, it is the poet's first gift, as it 
is all men's, that he have intellect enough. He will be a poet 
if he have : a poet in word ; or failing that, perhaps still better, 
a poet in act. Whether he write at all; and if so, whether in 
prose or in verse, will depend on accidents : who knows on what 
extremely trivial accidents, — perhaps on his having had a 
singing-master, on his being taught to sing in his boyhood ! 
But the faculty which enables him to discern the inner heart 
of things, and the harmony that dwells there (for whatsoever 
exists has a harmony in the heart of it, or it would not hold 
together and exist), is not the result of habits or accidents, 
but the gift of Nature herself ; the primary outfit for a heroic 
man in what sort soever. To the Poet, as to every other, we 
say, first of all. See. If you cannot do that, it is of no use to 
keep stringing rhymes together, jingling sensibilities against 



CARLYLE 263 

each other, and name yourself a Poet; there is no hope for 
you. If you can, there is, in prose or verse, in action or specu- 
lation, all manner of hope. The crabbed old schoolmaster^ 
used to ask, when they brought him a new pupil, ^^But are ye 
sure he's not a dunce f^^ Why, really one might ask the same 
thing, in regard to every man proposed for whatsoever func- 
tion; and consider it as the one inquiry needful: Are ye sure 
he's not a dunce? There is, in this world, no other entirely 
fatal person. 

For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man 
is a correct measure of the man. If called to define Shakes- 
peare's faculty, I should say superiority of intellect, and think 
I had included all under that. What indeed are faculties ? We 
talk of faculties as if they were distinct, things separable; as 
if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, etc., as he has 
hands, feet, and arms. That is a capital error. Then again^ 
we hear of a man's ^^intellectual nature/' and of his "moral 
nature," as if these again were divisible and existed apart. 
Necessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms of 
utterance; we must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are 
to speak at all. But words ought not to harden into things 
for us. It seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, 
for most part, radically falsified thereby. We ought to know 
withal, and to keep forever in mind, that these divisions are 
at bottom but names; that man's spiritual nature, the vital 
force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible; 
that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so 
forth, are but different figures of the same power of insight, 
all indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically^^ 
related; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of 
them. Morality itself, what we call the moral quality of a 
man, what is this but another side of the one vital force 

9. old scliooliiiaster. A real person, mentioned in ore of 

Carlyle's letters to Emerson. 

10. plxysiognoinically. With reference to the signs of inner 
character. 



264 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

whereby he is and works? All that a man does is physiog- 
nomical of him. You may see how a man would fight, by the 
way in which he sings; his courage, or want of courage, is 
visible in the word he utters, in the opinion he has formed, no 
less than in the stroke he strikes. He is onej and preaches the 
same self abroad in all these ways. 

Without hands a man might have feet, and could still walk ; 
but, consider it, — ^without morality, intellect were impossible 
for him; a thoroughly immoral man could not know anything 
at all ! To know a thing, what we call knowing, a man must 
first love the thing, sympathize with it: that is, be virtuously 
related to it. If he have not the justice to put down his own 
selfishness at every turn, the courage to stand by the danger- 
ous-true at every turn, how shall he know? His virtues, all 
of them, will lie recorded in his knowledge. Nature, with her 
truth, remains to the bad, to the selfish and pusillanimous, for- 
ever a sealed book: what such can know of Nature is mean, 
superficial, small; for the uses of the day merely. But does 
not the very fox know something of Nature ? Exactly so : it 
knows where the geese lodge ! The human Reynard,^^ very 
frequent everywhere in the w^orld, what more does he know but 
this and the like of this? Nay, it should be considered too, 
that if the fox had not a certain vulpine^^ morality, he could 
not even know where the geese were, or get at the geese ! If 
he spent his time in splenetic atrabiliar reflections on his own 
misery, his ill usage by Nature, Fortune, and other foxes, and 
so forth, and had not courage, promptitude, practicality, and 
other suitable vulpine gifts and graces, he would catch no 
geese. We may say of the fox too, that his morality and 
insight are of the same dimensions ; different faces of the same 
internal unity of vulpine life! These things are worth stat- 
ing; for the contrary of them acts with manifold very baleful 
perversion, in this time: what limitations, modifications they 
require, your own candor will supply. 

11. Beynard. Fox. 

12. viilpiiie. Pertaining to a fox. 



CAKLYLE 265 

If I say, therefore, that Shakespeare is the greatest of 
intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in 
Shakespeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I 
call an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than 
he himself is aware of. Novalis^^ beautifully remarks of him, 
that those dramas of his are products of Nature too, deep as 
Nature herself. I find a great truth in this saying. Shakes- 
peare's art is not artifice; the noblest worth of it is not there 
by plan or precontrivance. It grows up from the deeps of 
Nature, through this noble sincere soul, who lis a voice of 
Nature. The latest generations of men will find new meanings 
in Shakespeare, new elucidations of their own human beings 
"new harmonies with the infinite structure of the Universe; 
concurrences with later ideas, affinities with the higher powers 
and senses of man."^* This well deserves meditating. It is 
Nature's highest reward to a true simple great soul, that he 
get thus to be a part of herself. Such a man's works, what- 
soever he with utmost conscious exertion and forethought shall 
accomplish, grow up withal unconsciously, from the unknown 
deeps in him; as the oak tree grows from the earth's bosom, 
as the mountains and waters shape themselves; with a sym- 
metry grounded on Nature's own laws, conformable to all 
truth whatsoever. How much in Shakespeare lies hid, — ^his 
sorrows, his silent struggles known to himself; much that was 
not known at all, not speakable at ail : like roots, like sap and 
forces working underground! Speech is great; but silence is 
greater. 

Withal the joyful tranquillity of this man is notable. I will 
not blame Darite for his misery : it is as battle without victory ; 
but true battle, — the first, indispensable thing. Yet I call 
Shakespeare greater than Dante, in that he fought truly, and 
did conquer. Doubt it not, he had his own sorrows : those Son- 



13. ITovalis. The pen-name of a German writer, Friedrich von 
Hardenberg. 

14. new harmonies, etc. Also from Novalis. 



266 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

nets^^ of his will even testify expressly in what deep waters 
he had waded, and swum struggling for his life ; — as what man 
like him ever failed to have to do? It seems to me a heedlesr. 
notion, our common one, that he sat like a bird on the bough, 
and sang forth, free and offhand, never knowing the troubles 
of other men. Not so; with no man is it so. How could a 
man travel forward from rustic deer-poaching to such tragedy- 
writing, and not fail in with sorrows by the way? Or, still 
better, how could a man delineate a Hamlet, a Coriolanus, a 
Macbeth, so many suffering heroic hearts, if his own heroic 
heart had never suffered? And now, in contrast with all this, 
observe his mirthf ulness, his genuine overflowing love of 
laughter! You would say, in no point does he exaggerate but 
only in laughter ! Fiery objurgations, words that pierce and 
burn, are to be found in Shakespeare; yet he is always in 
measure here ; never what Johnson would remark as a specially 
"good hater.'' But his laughter seems to pour from him in 
floods; he heaps all manner of ridiculous nicknames on the 
butt he is bantering, tumbles and tosses him in all sorts of 
horse-play ; you would say, with his whole heart laughs. And 
then, if not always the finest, it is always a genial laughter. 
Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty ; never. No man 
who can laugh, what we call laughing, will laugh at these 
things. It is some poor character only desiring to laugh, and 
have the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means sym- 
pathy; good laughter is not "crackling of thorns under the 
pot.''^^ Even at stupidity and pretension this Shakespeare 
does not laugh otherwise than genially. Dogberry and Verges^ ^ 
tickle our very hearts, and we dismiss them covered with 
explosions of laughter; but we like the poor fellows only the 

15. Sonnets. Shakespeare's Sonnets contain allusions, appar- 
ently personal, to unhappy experiences in friendship and love, 
though nothing" certain is known of the extent to which they 
are based on fact. 

16. crackling of tlxoms, etc. See Ecclesiastes 7:6. 

17. Dog-berry and Verffes. Clownish constables in Much Ado 
about Nothing, 



CARLYLE 267 

better for our laughing, and hope they will get on well there, 
and continue Presidents of the City-watch. Such laughter, 
like sunshine on the deep sea, is very beautiful to me. 

We have no room to speak of Shakespeare's individual 
works; though perhaps there is much still waiting to be said 
on that head. Had we, for instance, all his plays reviewed 
as Hamlet, in Wilhelm Meister,^^ is! A thing which might, 
one day, be done. August Wilhelm SchlegeP^ has a remark on 
his historical plays, Henry Fifth and the others, which is 
worth rememberings He calls them a kind of national epic. 
Marlborough,^^ you recollect, said, he knew no English history 
but what he had learned from Shakespeare. There are really, 
if we look to it, few as memorable histories. The great salient 
points are admirably seized; all rounds itself off, into a kind 
of rhythmic coherence ; it is, as Schlegel says, epic; — as indeed 
all delineation by a great thinker will be. There are right 
beautiful things in those pieces, which indeed together form 
one beautiful thing. That battle of Agincourt^^ strikes me as 
one of the most perfect things, in its sort, we anywhere have 
of Shakespeare's. The description of the two hosts : the worn- 
out, jaded English; the dread hour, big with destiny, when the 
battle shall begin; and then that deathless valor: "Ye good 
yeomen, whose limbs were made in England !"22 There is a 
noble patriotism in it, — far other than the "indifference" you 
sometimes hear ascribed to Shakespeare. A true English heart 
breathes, calm and strong, through the whole business; not 
boisterous, protrusive; all the better for that. There is a 
sound in it like the ring of steel. This man too had a right 
stroke in him, had it come to that! 

But I will say, of Shakespeare's works generally, that we 

18. WUlielm Meister. A work by Goethe (1795-6). 

19. SeMeg'el. A German critic who did much to interest his 
countrymen in Shakespeare. 

20. MarlboroufiTh. Duke and famous general (died 1722). 

21. Battle of Aglncourt. In the fourth act of Henry Fifth. 

22. Ye grood yeomen, etc. This speech (from Act III, scene i) 
was made at Harfleur. 



268 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

have no full impress of iiim there, even as full as we have 
of many men. His works are so many windows, through which 
we see a glimpse of the world that was in him. All his works 
seem, comparatively speaking, cursory, imperfect, written 
under cramping circumstances; giving only here and there a 
note of the full utterance of the man. Passages there are that 
come upon you like splendor out of heaven ; bursts of radiance, 
illuminating the very heart of the thing: you say, "That is 
true J spoken once and forever; wheresoever and whensoever 
there is an open human soul, that will be recognized as true !" 
Such bursts, however, make us feel that the surrounding 
matter is not radiant; that it is, in part, temporary, conven- 
tional. Alas, Shakespeare had to write for the Globe Play- 
house : his great soul had to crush itself, as it could, into that 
and no other mould. It was with him, then, as it is with us all. 
No man works save under conditions. The sculptor cannot set 
his own free thought before us; but his thought as he could 
translate it into the stone that was given, with the tools that 
were given. Disjecta memhra^^ are all that we find of any 
poet, or of any man. 

Whoever looks intelligently at this Shakespeare may recog- 
nize that he too was a Prophet,^^ in his way; of an insight 
analogous to the prophetic, though he took it up in another 
strain. Nature seemed to this man also divine; -z^wspeakable, 
deep as Tophet,^^ high as Heaven: ^We are such stuff as 
dreams are made of!'' That scroli^^ in Westminster Abbey, 
which few read with understanding, is of the depth of any 
seer. But the man sang; did not preach, except musically. 
We called Dante the melodious priest of Middle- Age Catholi- 
cism. May we not call Shakespeare the still more melodious 

23. Disjecta memlbra. Scattered bits. 

24. a Propheto Carlyle refers to the preceding- lecture, in 
which he had discussed Mahomet as prophet-hero. 

25. Tophet. Hell (originally, a place of pagan sacrifice, near 
Jerusalem). 

26. Tliat scjroll. In the hand of Shakespeare, on his monu- 
ment in the Abbey, bearing the words just quoted from The 
Tempest. 



I 



CARLYLE 269 

priest of a true Catholicism, the "Universal Church" of the 
future and of all times ? No narrow superstition, harsh asceti- 
cism, intolerance, fanatical fierceness or perversion: a revela- 
tion, so far as it goes, that such a thousandfold hidden beauty 
and divineness dwells in all Nature; which let all men worship 
as they can! We may say without offense, that there rises a 
kind of universal psalm out of this Shakespeare too, not unfit 
to make itself heard among the still more sacred Psalms. Not 
in disharmony with these, if we understood them, but in har- 
mony ! I cannot call this Shakespeare a "skeptic," as some 
do; his indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of 
his time misleading them. No : neither unpatriotic, though he 
says little about his patriotism, nor skeptic, though he says 
little about his faith. Such "indifference" was the fruit of 
his greatness withal: his whole heart was in his own grand 
sphere of worship (we may call it such) ; these other contro- 
versies, vitally important to other men, were not vital to him. 
But call it worship, call it what you will, is it not a right 
glorious thing, and set of things, this that Shakespeare has 
brought us? For myself, I feel that there is actually a kind 
of sacredness in the fact of such a man being sent into this 
earth. Is he not an eye to us all, a blessed heaven-sent bringer 
of light? And, at bottom, was it not perhaps far better that 
this Shakespeare, everv^way an unconscious man, was conscious 
of no heavenly message? He did not feel, like Mahomet, 
because he saw into those internal splendors, that he specially 
was the "Prophet of God"; and was he not gTeater than 
Mahomet in that? Greater; and also, if we compute strictly, 
as we did in Dante's case, more successful. It was intrinsically 
an error that notion of Mahomet's, of his supreme prophet- 
hood, and has come down to us inextricably involved in error 
to this day, dragging along with it such a eoiP^ of fables, 
impurities, intolerances, as makes it a questionable step for me 
here and now to say, as I have done, that Mahomet was a true 

27. coU. TumultuouB mass. 



270 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

speaker at all, and not rather an ambitious charlatan, perver- 
sity, and simulacrum; 2^ no speaker, but a babbler! Even in 
Arabia, as I compute, Mahomet will have exhausted himself and 
become obsolete, while this Shakespeare, this Dante may still 
be young; while this Shakespeare may still pretend to be a 
priest of mankind, of Arabia as of other places, for unlimited 
periods to come! 

Compared with any speaker or singer one knows, even with 
^schylus or Homer, why should he not, for veracity and uni- 
versality, last like them? He is sincere as they; reaches deep 
down like them, to the universal and perennial. But as for 
Mahomet, I think it had been better for him not to be so 
conscious ! Alas, poor Mahomet ; all that he was conscious of 
was a mere error ; a futility and triviality, — as indeed such ever 
is. The truly great in him too was the unconscious: that he 
was a wild Arab lion in the desert, and did speak out with 
that great thunder-voice of his, not by words which he thought 
to be gTeat, but by actions, by feelings, by a history which 
were great ! His Koran^^ has become a stupid pieee of prolix 
absurdity; we do not believe, like him, that God wrote that! 
The great man here too, as always, is a force of Nature ; what- 
soever is truly great in him springs up from the inarticulate 
deeps. 

Well : this is our poor Warwickshire peasant, who rose to be 
manager of a playhouse, so that he could live without begging ; 
whom the Earl of Southampton^^ cast some kind glances on; 
whom Sir Thomas Lucy, many thanks to him, was for sending 
to the treadmill ! We did not account him a god, like Odin,^^ 
while he dwelt with us; — on which point there were much to 
be said. But I will say rather, or repeat: in spite of the sad 
state hero-worship now lies in, consider what this Shakespeare 

28. simulacmm. Imag-e, imitation. 

29. Koran. The sacred book of Mohammedism. 

30. Earl of Southampton. See note on page 432. 

31. Odin. The Norse deity, discussed in the first lecture of 
this series. 



CARLYLE 271 

has actually become among us. Which Englishman we ever 
made, in this land of ours, which million of Englishmen, would 
we not give up rather than the Stratford peasant^ There is 
no regiment of highest dignitaries that we would sell him for. 
He is the grandest thing we have yet done. For our honor 
among foreign nations, as an ornament to our English house- 
hold, what item is there that we would not surrender rather 
than him? Consider now, if they asked us. Will you give up 
your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare, you English ; never 
have had any Indian Empire, or never have had any Shakes- 
peare? Really it were a grave question. Official persons would 
answer doubtless in official language; but we, for our part too, 
should not we be forced to answer: Indian Empire, or no 
Indian Empire ; we cannot do without Shakespeare ! Indian 
Empire will go, at any rate, some day; but this Shakespeare 
does not go, he lasts forever with us; we cannot give up our 
Shakespeare ! 

Nay, apart from spiritualities, and considering him merely 
as a real, marketable, tangibly useful possession. England, 
before long, this island of ours, will hold but a small fraction 
of the English: in America, in New Holland,^^ east and west 
to the very antipodes, there will be a Saxondom covering 
great spaces of the globe. And now, what is it that can keep 
all these together into virtually one nation, so that they do 
not fall out and fight, but live at peace, in brotherlike inter- 
course, helping one another? This is justly regarded as the 
greatest practical problem, the thing all manner of sovereign- 
ties and governments are here to accomplish: what is it that 
will accomplish this ? Acts of Parliament, administrative prime 
ministers cannot. America is parted from us, so far as Parlia- 
ment could part it. Call it not fantastic, for there is much 
reality in it: here, I say, is an English king, whom no time 
or chance, Parliament or combination of Parliaments, can 
dethrone ! This King Shakespeare, does not he shine, in 

32. New Holland. The old name of Australia. 



272 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet 
strongest of rallying-signs ; ^destructible ; really more valuable 
in that point of view than any other means or appliance what- 
soever? We can fancy him as radiant aloft over all the 
nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence. From Para- 
matta,^2 from New York, wheresoever, under what sort of 
Parish Constable soever, English men and women are, they 
will say to one another: "Yes, this Shakespeare is ours; we 
produced him, we speak and think by him ; we are of one blood 
and kind with him/' The most common-sense politician, too, 
if he pleases, may think of that 

Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a nation that it get an 
articulate voice: that it produce a man who will speak forth 
melodiously what the heart of it means ! Italy, for example, 
poor Italy lies dismembered,^* scattered asunder, not appearing 
in any protocol or treaty as a unity at all; yet the noble 
Italy is actually one: Italy produced its Dante; Italy can 
speak ! The Czar of all the Russias, he is strong, with so many 
bayonets, Cossacks, and cannons, and does a great feat in 
keeping such a tract of earth politically together ; but he cannot 
yet speak. Something great in him, but it is a dumb great- 
ness.^^ He has had no voice of genius, to be heard of all men 
and times. He must learn to speak. He is a great dumb 
monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks will all have 
rusted into nonentity, while that Dante's voice is still audible. 
The nation that has a Dante is bound together as no dumb 
Russia can be. — We must here end what we had to say of 
the Hero-Poet. 



33. Paramatta. ^In New South Wales. 

34. Italy lies dismembered. Written, of course, before the uni- 
fication of modern Italy. 

35. a dumb greatness. Written, again, before Russia had made 
her spirit known to the world through her great writers of the 
era of Tolstoy. 



CARLYLE 273 

LABORi 

There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in 
work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high call- 
ing, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly 
works: in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, 
never so Mammonish, ^ mean, is in communication with Nature ; 
the real desire to get work done will itself lead one more and 
more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations, which 
are truth. 

The latest gospel in this world is. Know thy work and do it. 
^^Know thyself: long enough has that poor "self of thine 
tormented thee; thou wilt never get to "know" it, I believe! 
Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art 
an unknowable individual: know what thou canst work at; 
and work at it, like a Hercules ! That will be thy better plan. 

It has been written, "an endless significance lies in work"; 
a man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared 
away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities ; and withal 
the man himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwhole- 
some desert thereby. Consider how, even in the meanest sorts 
of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of 
real harmony, the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, 
Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these 
like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day-worker, 
as of every man ; but he bends himself with free valor against 
his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring 
far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed 
glow of labor in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all 
poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made 
bright blessed flame! 

Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us. A 

1. This is chapter 11 of the third book of Past and Present, 
published in 1843, a work primarily devoted to the new economic 
and social problems of modern industrial England. It sets forth 
one of Carlyle's chief doctrines. 

2. DCammonislL. Sordid (see Matthew 6: 24). 



274 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

formless chaos, once set it revolving,^ grows round and ever 
rounder; ranges itself, by mere force of gravity, into strata, 
spherical courses ; is no longer a chaos, but a round compacted 
world. What would become of the earth, did she cease to 
revolve'? In the poor old eaii;h, so long as she revolves, all 
inequalities, irregularities disperse themselves ; all irregularities 
are incessantly becoming regular. Hast thou looked on the 
potter's wheel, — one of the venerablest objects; old as the 
Prophet EzekieP and far older? Rude lumps of clay, how^ 
they spin themselves up, by mere quick whirling, into beautiful 
circular dishes. And fancy the most assiduous Potter, but 
without his wheel ; reduced to make dishes or rather amorphous-^ 
botches, by mere kneading and baking! Even such a potter 
were destiny, with a human soul that would rest and lie at 
ease, that would not work and spin ! Of an idle unr evolving 
man the kindest destiny, like the most assiduous potter with- 
out wheel, can bake and knead nothing other than a botch; 
let her spend on him what expensive coloring, what gilding 
and enamelling she will, he is but a botch. Not a dish; no, a 
bulging, kneaded, crooked, shambling, squint-cornered, amor- 
phous botch, — a mere enamelled vessel of dishonor! Let the 
idle think of this. 

Blessed is he who has found his work ; let him ask no other 
blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, 
and will follow it ! How, as a free-flowing channel, dug and 
torn by noble force through the sour mud-sw^amp of one's 
existence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows ; 
— draining off the sour festering water gradually from the 
root of the remotest gTass-blade ; making, instead of pestilential 
swamp, a green fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. 
How blessed for the meadow itself, let the stream and its value 



3. once set it revolving*. An allusion to the "nebular hypothe- 
sis" respecting the forming of planets. 

4. old as the Prophet Ezekiel. Not referred to, however, by 
Ezekiel; Carlyle may have been thinking of Jeremiah (18: 3). 

5. amorphous. Formless. 



CARLYLE .275 

be great or small ! Labor is life : from the inmost heart of the 
worker rises his god-given force, the sacred celestial Life- 
essence breathed into him by Almighty God; from his inmost 
heart awakens him to all nobleness, — to all knowledge, "self- 
knowledge'^ and much else, so soon as work fitly begins. 
Knowledge? The knowledge that will hold good in working, 
cleave thou to that ; for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea 
to that. Properly thou hast no other knowledge but what thou 
hast got by working : the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowl- 
edge; a thing to be argued of in schools, a thing floating in 
the clouds, in endless logic-vortices, till we try it and fix it. 
"Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone." 

And again, hast thou valued patience, courage, persever- 
ance, openness to light; readiness to own thyself mistaken, to 
do better next time? All these, all virtues, in wrestling with 
the dim brute powers of fact, in ordering of thy fellows in 
such wrestle, there and elsewhere not at all, thou wilt continu- 
ally learn. Set down a brave Sir Christopher^ in the middle 
of black ruined stone-heaps, of foolish unarchitectural bishops, 
red-tape officials, idle Nell Gwyn Defenders of the Faith ;^ and 
see whether he will ever raise a Paul's Cathedral out of all that, 
yea or no! Rough, rude, contradictory are all things and per- 
sons, from the mutinous masons and Irish hodmen, up to the 
idle Nell Gwyn Defenders, to blustering red-tape officials, 
foolish unarchitectural bishops. All these things and persons 
are there not for Christopher's sake and his cathedral's; they 
are there for their own sake mainly ! Christopher will have to 
conquer and constrain all these, — if he be able. All these are 
against him. Equitable Nature herself, who carries her mathe- 
matics and architectonics not on the face of her, but deep in 

6 Sir Cliristoplier. Christopher Wren, architect of the new 
St. Paurs Cathedral, built 1675-1710. 

7. idle Nell Gwyn Defenders. Such as Charles the Second, in 
whose reigTi Wren began his work. One of the titles of the 
Eng-lish king is "Defender of the Faith," but Charles was notor- 
iously frivolous and immoral; one of his favorites was the 
actress Nell Gwyn. 



276 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

the hidden heart of her, — Nature herself is but partially for 
him ; will be wholly against him, if he constrain her not ! His 
very money, where is it to come from*? The pious munificence 
of England lies far-scattered, distant, unable to speak, and 
say, ^^I am here"; — must be spoken to before it can speak. 
Pious munificence, and all help, is so silent, invisible, like the 
gods; impediment, contradictions manifold are so loud and 
near! brave Sir Christopher, trust thou in those notwith- 
standing, and front all these; understand all these; by valiant 
patience, noble effort, insight, by man's strength, vanquish 
and compel all these, — and, on the whole, strike down victori- 
ously the last topstone of that Paul's edifice; thy monument 
for certain centuries, the stamp "Great Man" impressed very 
legibly on Portland stone there ! 

Yes, all manner of help, and pious response from men or 
Nature, is always what we call silent; cannot speak or come to 
light, till it be seen, till it be spoken to. Every noble work is at 
first "impossible." In very truth, for every noble work the 
possibilities will lie diffused through immensity; inarticulate, 
undiscoverable except to faith. Like Gideon^ thou shalt spread 
out thy fleece at the door of thy tent; see whether under the 
wide arch of Heaven there be any bounteous moisture, or none. 
Thy heart and life-purpose shall be as a miraculous Gideon's 
fleece, spread out in silent appeal to Heaven: and from the 
kind immensities, what from the poor unkind localities and 
town and country parishes tliere never could, blessed dew- 
moisture to suffice thee shall have fallen ! 

Work is of a religious nature: — work is of a brave nature; 
which it is the aim of all religion to be. All work of man is as 
the swimmer's: a waste ocean threatens to devour him; if he 
front it not bravely, it will keep its word. By incessant wise 
defiance of it, lusty rebuke and buffet of it, behold how it 
loyally supports him, bears him as its conqueror along. "It 



8. Gideon. See Judges 6:36-40. 



CARLYLE 277 

is so/^ says Goethe, "with all things that man undertakes in 
this world." 

Brave sea-captain, Norse sea-king, — Columbus, my hero, 
royalest sea-king of all! it is no friendly environment this of 
thine, in the waste deep waters; around thee mutinous dis- 
couraged souls, behind thee disgrace and ruin, before thee the 
unpenetrated veil of night. Brother, these wild water-moun- 
tains, bounding from their deep bases (ten miles deep, I am 
told), are not entirely there on thy behalf ! Meseems tliey have 
other work than floating thee forward: — and the huge winds, 
that sweep from Ursa Major^ to the tropics and equators, 
dancing their giant-waltz through the kingdoms of chaos and 
immensity, they care little about filling rightly or filling 
wrongly the small shoulder-of -mutton sails in this cockle-skiff 
of thine ! Thou art not among articulate-speaking friends, my 
brother; thou art among immeasurable dumb monsters, tum- 
bling, howling wide as the world here. Secret, far off, invisible 
to all hearts but thine, there lies a help in them; see how thou 
wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt wait until the mad South- 
wester spends itself, saving thyself by dextrous science of 
defense, the while: valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou 
strike in, when the favoring East, the Possible, springs up. 
Mutiny of men thou wilt sternly repress; weakness, despond- 
ency, thou wilt cheerfully encourage: thou wilt swallow down 
complaint, unreason, weariness, weakness of others and thy- 
self ; — how much wilt thou swallow down ! There shall be a 
depth of silence in thee, deeper than this sea, which is but ten 
miles deep : a silence unsoundable ; known to God only. Thou 
shalt be a great man. Yes, my world-soldier, thou of the 
World Marine-service, — thou wilt have to be greater than this 
tumultous unmeasured world here round thee is; thou, in 
thy strong soul, as with wrestler^s arms, shalt embrace it, 
harness it down; and make it bear thee on, — to new Americas, 
or whither God wills ! 

9. Ursa Major. The constellation of the Great Bear. 



JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 

[John Henry Newman was born at London in 1801, and was edu- 
cated at Oxford University. He became a clergyman of the 
English Church, and distinguished himself as a preacher at St. 
Mary's Church, Oxford. In 1845 he entered the Roman Catholic 
Church, of which he soon became one of the leading represen- 
tatives in England, and in 1879 was made Cardinal. Meantime 
he had done much writing on theological and educational sub- 
jects, and had served as Rector of the Catholic University of 
Dublin. In connection with the founding of the university, and 
during his rectorship, he delivered a number of lectures which 
were later published under the titles The Idea of a University and 
Lectures on University Subjects, — Newman's chief non-religious 
works. He died in 1890.] 

THE EDUCATED MAN^ 

A UNIVERSITY is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal 
authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or con- 
querors of nations. It does not promise a generation of Aris- 
totles or Newtons, of Napoleons or Washingtons, of Raphaels 
or Shakespeares, though such miracles of nature it has before 
now contained within its precincts. Nor is it content on the 
other hand with forming the critic or the experimentalist, the 
economist or the engineer, though such too it includes within 
its scope. But a university training is the great ordinary 
means to a great but ordinary end ; it aims at raising the intel- 
lectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at puri- 
fying the national taste, at supplying true principles to 
popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspiration, at 
giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at 

1. This and the two following selections are not, of course, 
essays in the usual sense of the term, but brief passages from 
Newman's University lectures. They are justly famous for the 
breadth and fineness of their descriptive characterization," and 
may be interestingly compared with the "character" essays of 
the seventeenth century (pages 49-58 above). 

278 



NEWMAN 279 

facilitating the exercise of political power, and refining the 
intercourse of private life. It is the education which gives a 
man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judg- 
ments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing 
them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see 
things as they are, to get right to the point, to disentangle a 
skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard 
what is irrelevant. It prepares him to fill any post with credit, 
and to master any subject with facility. It shows him how 
to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself into 
their state cf mind, how to bring before them his own, how 
to influence them, how to come to an understanding with them, 
how to bear with them. He is at home in any society, he has 
common ground with every class ; he knows when to speak and 
when to be silent; he is able to converse, he is able to listen; 
he can ask a cjuestion pertinently, and gain a lesson seasonably, 
when he has nothing to impart himself; he is ever ready, yet 
never in the way; he is a pleasant companion, and a comrade 
you can depend upon; he knows when to be serious and when 
to trifle, and he has a sure tact which enables him to trifle 
with gracefulness and to be serious vdth effect. He has the 
repose of mind which lives in itself, while it lives in the 
world, and which has resources for its happiness at home 
when it cannot go abroad. He has a gift which serves him in 
public, and supports him in retirem^ent, without which good 
fortune is but vulgar, and with which failure and disappoint- 
ment have a charm. 

THE GENTLEMAN 

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one 
who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, 
as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely 
removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unem- 
barrassed action of those about him, and he concurs with their 
movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His bene- 



280 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

fits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts 
or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature; like an 
easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold 
and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and 
animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner 
carefully avoids whatever may cause a j ax or a jolt in the 
minds of those with whom he is cast; — all clashing of opinion, 
or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or 
resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their 
ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is 
tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and 
merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is 
speaking; he guards against unreasonable allusions, or topics 
which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, 
and never w^earisome. He makes light of favors while he does 
them, and seems to be receiving w4ien he is conferring. He 
never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends 
himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, 
is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with 
him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean 
or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never 
mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or 
insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted 
prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we 
should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were 
one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be 
affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember 
injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, for- 
bearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits 
to pain because it is inevitable, to bereavement because it is 
irreparable, and to death because it is his destiny. If he 
engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect 
preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better, per- 
haps, but less educated minds, who, like blunt weapons, tear 
and hack, instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in 



Bl 



» 



NEWMAN 281 

argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their 
adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find 
it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too 
clear-headed to be unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and 
as brief as he is decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candor, 
consideration, indulgence : he throws himself into the minds of 
his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He knows the 
weakness of human reason as well as its strength, its province 
and its limits. If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound 
and large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it; he is 
too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He 
respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions as 
venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not assent; 
he honors the ministers of religion, and it contents him to 
decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. He 
is a friend of religious toleration, and that not only because his 
philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with 
an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy 
of feeling which is the attendant on ci\T.lization. 

THE GREAT WRITER 

A great author is not one who merely has a copia verhorum,^ 
whether in prose or verse, and can, as it were, turn on at his 
will any number of splendid phrases and swelling sentences; 
but he is one who has something to say and knows how to say 
it. I do not claim for him, as such, any great depth of thought, 
or breadth of view, or philosophy, or sagacity, or kiiowledge 
of human nature, or experience of human life, though these 
additional gifts he may have, and the more he has of them 
the greater he is; but I ascribe to him, as his characteristic 
gift, in a large sense the faculty of expression. He is master 
of the two-fold Logos, the thought and the word, distinct, but 
inseparable from each other. He may, if so be, elaborate his 
compositions, or he may pour out his improvisations, but in 

1. copia verlionini. Abundant supply of words. 



282 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

either case he has but one aim, wliich he keeps steadily before 
him, and is conscientious and single-minded in fulfilling. That 
aim is to give forth what he has within him ; and from his very 
earnestness it comes to pass that, whatever be the splendor of 
his diction or the harmony of his periods, he has with him the 
charm of an incommunicable simplicity. Whatever be his 
subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for its own sake. 
If he is a poet, "nil molitur inepte/'^ If he is an orator, then 
too he speaks, not only "distincte^' and "splendide,'' but also 
*'apte."^ His page is the lucid mirror of his mind and life — 

Quo fit, ut omnis 
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella 
Vita senis.4 

He writes passionately, because he feels keenly; forcibly 
because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; 
he is too serious to be otiose;^ he can analyze his subject, and 
therefore he is rich ; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, 
and therefore he is consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and 
therefore he is luminous. When his imagination wells up, it 
overflows in ornament; when his heart is touched, it thrills 
along his verse. He always has the right word for the right 
idea, and never a word too much. If he is brief, it is because 
few words suffice; when he is lavish of them, still each word 
has its mark, and aids, not embarrasses, the vigorous march 
of his elocution. He expresses what all feel, but all cannot 
say; and his sayings pass into proverbs among his people, 
and his phrases become household words and idioms of their 
daily speech, which is tesselated with the rich fragments of 
his language, as we see in foreign lands the marbles of Roman 
grandeur worked into the walls and pavements of modern 
palaces. 

2. nil molitur iuepte. "He attempts nothing- foolishly" (from 
Horace's "Art of Poetry"). 

3. apte. Fittingly. 

4. Quo fit, etc. "WTience it happens that the whole life of the 
old man lies open to view as if displayed on a votive tablet" 
(from Horace's Satires, II, i). 

5. otiose. Neg^ligent. 



JOHX RUSKIN 



I 



[John Ruskin was born at London in 1819, the son of a wealthy 
merchant. During and after his college years he traveled largely, 
for the sake of his health, and at the same time studied drawing 
and the history of painting, thus developing his interest in nature 
and in art. In order to introduce to the public the work of the 
artist Turner, whom he passionately admired, he began the 
composition of Modern Painters, which made his reputation as 
critic and essayist when he was still a young man. Later his 
art classes for workingmen led him to take a deep interest in 
labor and other economic problems, to which he devoted the 
greater part of his attention after 1860. He founded the Guild 
of St. George, an experiment for rural living on principles intended 
a.s a protest against the tendencies of modern civilization, and 
to this and other social objects gave away the greater part of 
his fortune. In his later years he became Insane. He died at his 
beautiful home at Coniston, in the Lake country, In 1900. Though 
somewhat crabbed and controversial in his thinking, Ruskin's 
sincerity, unselfishness, and eloquence won him faithful friends 
and disciples in every walk of life; and even those who had no 
sympathy with his opinions were forced to recognize him as one 
of the masters of English prose ] 



ST. MAPtK^S CATHEDRAL^ 

I WISH that the reader, before I bring him into St. Mark's 
Place, would imagine himself for a little time in a quiet 
English cathedral town,^ and walk with me to the west front 
of its cathedral. Let us go together up the more retired street, 

1. Ruskin wrote no separate and distinctive egsays (see Intro- 
duction, p. 15). The present selection is a section of TJie Stones of 
Venice, 1853), a work devoted to the medieval art and architecture 
of Venice. It is the most famous, if not the finest, example of 
Ruskin's descriptive prose. The cathedral of St. Mark's, built at 
Venice in the 10th and 11th centuries, is the chief surviving 
specimen of the Byzantine school of architecture, and one of the 
most beautiful structures in the world. Ruskin heightens the 
description by a comparison with an English Gothic cathedral — 
equally admired in its own kind. 

2. Engrlisli catliedral town. Some elements of the description 
that follows have been identified with Canterbury, others with 
Salisbury. Evidently Ruskin meant it to be typical rather than 
specific. 



283 



i 



284 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

at the end of which we can see the pinnacles of one of the 
towers, and then through the low gTay gateway, with its battle- 
mented top and small latticed window in the center, into the 
inner private-looking road or close, where nothing goes in 
but the carts of the tradesmen who supply the bishop and the 
chapter, and where there are little shaven grass-plots, fenced 
in by neat rails, before old-fashioned groups of somewhat 
diminutive and excessively trim houses, with little oriel and 
bay windows jutting out here and there, and deep wooden 
cornices and eaves painted cream color and white, and small 
porches to their doors in the shape of cockle-shells, or little, 
crooked, thick, indescribable wooden gables warped a little on 
one side; and so forward till we come to larger houses, also 
old-fashioned, but of red brick, and with gardens behind them, 
and fruit walls, which show here and there, among the nectar- 
ines, the vestiges of an old cloister arch or shaft, and looking 
in front on the cathedral square itself, laid out in rigid divi- 
sions of smooth grass and gravel walk, yet not uncheerful, 
especially on the sunny side, where the canons' children are 
walking with their nursery-maids. And so, taking care not 
to tread on the gTass, we will go along the straight walk to 
the west front, and there stand for a time, looking up at its 
deep-pointed porches and the dark places between their pillars 
where there were statues once, and where the fragments, here 
and there, of a stately figure are still left, which has in it 
the likeness of a king, perhaps indeed a king on earth, perhaps 
a saintly king long ago in heaven; and so higher and higher 
up to the great mouldering wall of rugged sculpture and con- 
fused arcades, shattered, and gray, and gi'isly with heads of 
dragons and mocking fiends, worn by the rain and swirling 
winds into yet unseemlier shape, and colored on their stony 
scales by the deep russet-orange lichen, melancholy gold; 
and so, higher still, to the bleak towers, so far above that the 
eye loses itself among the bosses of their traceries, though 
they are rude and strong, and only sees like a drift of eddying 



RUSKIN 285 

black points, now closing", now scattering, and now settling 
suddenly into invisible places among the bosses and flowers, 
the crowd of restless birds that fill the whole square with 
that strange clangor of theirs, so harsh and yet so soothing, 
like the cries of birds on a solitary coast between the cliffs and 
sea. 

Think for a little while of that scene, and the meaning of all 
its small formalisms, mixed with its serene sublimity. Esti- 
mate its secluded, continuous, drowsy felicities, and its e^'idence 
of the sense and steady performance of such kind of duties 
as can be regulated by the cathedral clock; and weigh the 
influence of those dark towers on all who have passed through 
the lonely square at their feet for centuries, and on all who 
have seen them rising far away over the wooded plain, or 
catching on their square masses the last rays of the sunset, 
when the city at their feet was indicated only by the mist at 
the bend of the river.' And then let us quickly recollect that 
we are in Venice, and land at the extremity of the Calla 
Lunga^ San Moise which may be considered as there answer- 
ing to the secluded street that led us to our English cathedral 
gateway. 

We find ourselves in a paved alley, some seven feet wide 
where it is widest, full of people, and resonant with cries of 
itinerant salesmen, — a shriek in their beginning, and dying 
away into a kind of brazen ringing, all the worse for its con- 
finement between the high houses of the passage along which 
we have to make our way. Overhead, an inextricable confusion 
of rugged shutters, and iron balconies and chimney flues, 
pushed out on brackets to save room, and arched windows with 
projecting sills of Istrian stone, and gleams of green leaves 
here and there where a fig-tree branch escapes over a lower 
wall from some inner cortile,* leading the eye up to the narrow 
stream of blue sky high over all. On each side, a row of 

3. Calla ^tixig'a. Long avenue. 

4. cortUe. Court. 



286 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

shops, as densely set as may be, occupying, in fact, intervals 
between the square stone shafts, about eight feet high, which 
carry the first floors: intervals of which one is narrow and 
serves as a door; the other is, in the more respectable 
shops, wainscoted to the height of the counter and glazed 
above, but in those of the poorer tradesmen left open to 
the ground, and the wares laid on benches and tables in the 
open air, the light in all cases entering at the front only, and 
fading away in a few feet from the threshold into a gloom 
which the eye from without cannot penetrate, but which is 
generally broken by a ray or two from a feeble lamp at the 
back of the shop, suspended before a print of the Virgin. 
The less pious shopkeeper sometimes leaves his lamp unlighted, 
and is contented with a penny print; the more religious one 
has his print colored and set in a little shrine with a gilded 
or figured fringe, with perhaps a faded flower or two on each 
side, and his lamp burning brilliantly. *Here, at the fruiterer's 
where the dark-green water-melons are heaped upon the 
counter like cannon balls, the Madonna has a tabernacle of 
fresh laurel leaves ; but the pewterer next door has . let his 
lamp out, and there is nothing to be seen in his shop but the 
dull gleam of the studded patterns on the copper pans, hang- 
ing from his roof in the darkness. Next comes a ^^Vendita 
Frittole e Liquori,"^ where the Virgin, enthroned in a very 
humble manner beside a tallow candle on a back shelf, pre* 
sides over certain ambrosial morsels of a nature too ambiguous 
to be defined or enumerated. But a few steps farther on, at 
the regular wine-shop of the calle, where we are offered "Vino 
Nostrani a Soldi 28.32,''^ the Madonna is in great glory, 
, enthroned above ten or a dozen large red casks of three-year- 
old vintage, and flanked by goodly ranks of bottles of Maras- 
chino,^ and two crimson lamps; and for the evening, when 

5. Vendita Prittole, etc. "Fritters and Liquors for Sale." 

6. Vino Nostrani, etc. "Native Wines, at 28-32 halfpennies.** 

7. MarascLino. A cherry cordial. 



RUSKIN 287 

the gondoliers will come to drink out, under her auspices, the 
money they have gained during the day, she will have a whole 
chandelier. 

A yard or two farther, we pass the hostelry of the Black 

Eagle, and, glancing as we pass through the square door of 

marble, deeply moulded, in the outer wall, we see the shadows 

of its pergola of vines resting on an ancient well, with a 

pointed shield carved on its side; and so presently emerge on 

the bridge and Campo San Moise, whence to the entrance into 

St. Mark's Place, called the Bocca di Piazza (mouth of the 

square), the Venetian character is nearly destroyed, first by 

the frightful facade of San Moise, which we will pause at 

another time to examine, and then by the modernizing of the 

shops as they near the piazza, and the mingling with the lower 

Venetian populace of lounging groups of English and Austri- 

ans. We will push fast through them into the shadow of the 

pillars at the end of the ^^Bocca di Piazza," and then we forget 

them all; for between those pillars there opens a great light, 

and, in the midst of it, as we advance slowly, the vast tower 

of St. Mark seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level 

field of chequered stones; and, on each side, the countless 

arches prolong themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the 

rugged and irregular houses that pressed together above us in 

the dark alley had been struck back into sudden obedience 

and lovely order, and all their rude casements and broken 

walls had been transformed into arches charged with goodly 

sculptui'e, and fluted shafts of delicate stone. 

And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops of 
ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all 
the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of 
awe, that we may see it far away ; — a multitude of pillars and 
white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of colored 
light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of 
opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great 
vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculp- 



288 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

ture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory, — 
sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and 
grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering 
among the branches, all twined together into an endless net- 
work of buds and plumes; and in the midst of it the solemn 
forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet, and leaning 
to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among 
the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside 
them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded 
back among the branches of Eden, when first its gates were 
angel-guarded long ago. And round the walls of the porches 
there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, 
and deep-green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and 
marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, 
Cleopatra-like, ^^their bluest veins to kiss"^ — the shadow, as 
it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure 
undulation, as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their 
capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, 
and drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, 
all beginning and ending in the Cross ; and above them, in the 
broad archivolts,^ a continuous chain of language and of life 
— angels, and the signs of heaven,^^ and the labors of men, 
each in its appointed season upon the earth ; and above these 
another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches 
edged with scarlet flowers, — a confusion of delight, amidst 
which the breasts of the Greek horses^^ are seen blazing in 
their breadth of golden strength, and the St. Mark^s Lion,^^ 

8. tlieir 'blnest veins, etc. From Shakespeare's Antony & Cleo- 
patra, II, V. 

9. arcMvolts. Ornamental molding-s of arches. 

10. signs of heaven. The "signs of the zodiac.'* 

11. Q-reek liorses. These bronze horses were sent to Venice 
from Constantinople in 1204, after its capture in the Fourth 
Crusade. Napoleon took them to Paris in 1797, but they were 
restored in 1815. 

12. St. Mar:b:'s £ion. In ancient Christian art the lion was the 
symbol of the evangelist St. Mark. Hence its figure forms an I 
important element in the decoration of the cathedral dedicated 
to. him. 



RUSKIN 289 

lifted on a blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in 
ecstasy, the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and 
toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths 
of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore^^ 
had been frost-bound be-fore they fell, and the sea-nymphs 
had inlaid them with coral and amethyst. 

Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an 
interval! There is a type of it in the very birds that haunt 
them; for, instead of the restless crowd, hoarse- voiced and 
sable-winged, drifting on the bleak upper air, the St. Mark^s 
porches are full of doves, that nestle among the marble 
foliage, and mingle the soft iridescence of their living plumes, 
changing at every motion, with the tints, hardly less lovely^ 
that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years. 

And what eflcect has this splendor on those who pass beneath 
it? You may walk from sunrise to sunset, to and fro, before 
the gateway of St. Mark's, and you will not see an eye lifted 
to it, nor a countenance brightened by it. Priest and layman, 
soldier and civilian, rich and poor, pass by it alike regard- 
lessly. Up to the very recesses of the porches, the meanest 
tradesmen of the city push their counters; nay, the founda- 
tions of its pillars are themselves the seats — not "of them that 
sell doves"^* for sacrifice, but of the vendors of toys and 
caricatures. Round the whole square in front of the church 
there is almost a continuous line of cafes, where the idle 
Venetians of the middle classes lounge, and read empty jour- 
nals; in its center the Austrian bands play during the time 
of vespers, their martial music jarring with the organ notes, — 
the march drowning the miser ere,^^ and the sullen crowd 



13. Zildo sliore. At one of the entrances to the harbor of Venice. 
This passag-e Ruskin did not wish to have taken as mere rhetori- 
cal embellishment; he believed that "the Venetians . . . were 
always influenced in their choice of guiding- lines of sculpture 
by their sense of the action of wind or sea." 

14. tlLem tliat sell doves. See Matthew 21:12. 

15. miserere. The chanted 51st Psalm, whose first word is 
miserere in Latin. 



290 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

thickening round them, — a crowd, which, if it had its will, 
would stiletto every soldier^^ that pipes to it. And in the 
recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the low- 
est classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like 
lizards; and unregarded children — every heavy glance of their 
young eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, and their 
throats hoarse with cursing — gamble, and fight, and snarl, and 
sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised centesimi^^ upon 
the marble ledges of the church porch. And the images of 
Christ and His angels look down upon it continually. . 

THE WHITE-THORN BLOSSOM^ 

For lo, the winter is past, 

The rain is over and gone, 

The flowers appear on the earthy 

The time of the singing of birds is come. 

Arise, O my fair one, my dove. 

And come.^ 

Denmark Hill, 1st May, 1871. 
My Friends: 

It has been asked of me, very justly, why I have hitherto 
written to you of things you were likely little to care for, in 
words which it was difficult for you to understand. I have no 
fear but that you will one day understand all my poor words — 
the saddest of them perhaps too well. But I have great fear 

16. stiletto every soldier. Because the soldiers represented the 
tyranny of Austrian rule over the city at this time. 

17. centesimi. Coppers (each the hundredth of a lira). 

1. This is the fifth Letter of the collection called Fors Clavigera, 
made up of letters (96 in all) addressed "to the Workmen and 
Laborers of Great Britain," which Ruskin issued in various forms 
between 1871 and 1884. He was fond of poetically symbolic titles; 
this one, sug-g-ested by the date, probably signifies the simple 
beauties which rural Eng^land was losing- through the coming of 
the day of machinery and coal. The letter is one of the most 
vivid and representative, if exag-gerated, of Ruskin's protests 
ag^ainst the tendencies of the age. The closing" passage, resulted 
in the forming of St. George Guild (see biographical note above), 
which undertook the development of certain tracts of land in 
Worcestershire and elsewhere, and to which Ruskin personally 
contributed some 8000 pounds. 

2. Por lo, eta From the Song of Solomon, 2!ll-13. 



RUSKIX 291 

that you may never come to understand these written above, 
which are a part of a king's love-song, in one sweet May, of 
many long since gone. I fear that for you the wild winter's 
rain may never pass, the flowers never appear on the earth; 
that for you no bird may ever sing; for you no perfect Love 
arise and fulfill your life in peace. '^And why not for us 
as for others?'' Will you answer me so and take my fear for 
you as an insult? Nay, it is no insult; nor am I happier than 
you. For me the birds do not sing, nor ever will. But they 
would for you, if you cared to have it so. When I told you 
that you would never understand that love-song, I meant only 
that you would not desire to understand it. 

Are you- again indignant with me? Do you think, though 
you should labor and grieve and be trodden down in dishonor, 
all your days, at least you can keep that one joy of Love, 
and that one honor of Home? Had you, indeed, kept that, 
you had kept all. But no men yet, in the history of the race, 
have lost it so piteously. In many a country and many an age, 
women have been compelled to labor for their husbands^ 
wealth 02* bread; but never until now were they so homeless 
as to say, like the poor Samaritan,^ "I have no husband." 
Women of every country and people have sustained without 
complaint the labor of fellowship; for the women of the 
latter days in England it has been reserved to claim the privi- 
lege of isolation.* 

This, then, is the end of your universal education and civil- 
ization, and contempt of the ignorance of the Middle Ages and 
of their chivalry. Not only do you declare yourselves too 
indolent to labor for daughters and wives, and too poor to 
support them, but you have made the neglected and distracted 
creatures hold it for an honor to be independent of you and 
shriek for some hold of the mattock for themselves. Believe 

3. poor Samaxitan. See John 4:17. 

4. privilegre of isolation. That is, of economic (and ultimately 
political) independence. Ruskin did not believe in this tendency 
of modern society. 



292 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

it or not, as you may, there has not been so low a level of 
thought reached by any race since they grew to be male and 
female out of star-fish, or chickweed, or whatever else they 
have been made from by natural selection^ — according to 
modern science. 

That modern science, also, economic and of other kinds, has 
reached its climax at last. For it seems to be the appointed 
function of the nineteenth century to exliibit in all things the 
elect pattern of perfect Folly, for a warning to the farthest 
future. Thus the statement of principle which I quoted to 
you in my last letter, from the circular of the Emigration 
Society, that it is overproduction which is the cause of dis- 
tress, is accurately the most foolish thing, not only hitherto 
ever said by men, but which it is possible for men ever to 
say, respecting their own business. It is a kind of opposite 
pole (or negative acme of mortal stupidity) to Newton's dis- 
covery of gravitation as an acme of mortal wisdom: as no 
wise being on earth will ever be able to make such another wise 
discovery, so no foolish being on earth will ever be capable of 
saying such another foolish thing, through all the ages. 

And the same crisis has been exactly reached by our natural 
science and by our art. It has several times chanced to me, 
since I began these papers, to have the exact thing shown or 
brought to me that I wanted for illustration, just in time; 
and it happened that, on the very day on which I published 
my last letter, I had to go to the Kensington Museum,^ and 
there I saw the most perfectly and roundly ill-done thing which 
as yet in my whole life I ever saw produced by art. It had 
a tablet on front of it, bearing this inscription: — 

'^Statue in black and white marble, a Newfoundland Dog 

5. natural selection. The process, according' to one doctrine of 
biolog'ical evolution, by which successive species are developed. 
Ruskin is sneering at the mechanical or materialistic tendencies 
of this recent doctrine. 

6. Kensington Museum. A very large museum of science and 
art, in southwestern London, opened in 1857. It is now called 
officially the "Victoria and Albert Museum." 



RUSKIN 293 

standing on a Serpent, which rests on a marble cushion, the 
pedestal ornamented with pietra dura fruits in relief. — Eng- 
lish, Present Century, No. I/' 

It was so very right for me, the Kensington people having 
been good enough to number it "I," the thing itself being 
almost incredible in its one-ness, and, indeed, such a punctual 
accent over the iota^ of Miscreation, so absolutely and exquis- 
itely miscreant,® that I am not myself capable of conceiving a 
Number Two or Three, or any rivalship or association with it 
whatsoever. The extremity of its unvirtue consisted, observe, 
mainly in the quantity of instruction which was abused in it. 
It showed that the persons who produced it had seen every- 
thing, and practiced everything ; and misunderstood everything 
they saw, and misapplied everything they did. They had 
seen Roman work, and Florentine work, and Byzantine work, 
and Gothic work; and misunderstanding of everything had 
passed through them as the mud does through earthworms, 
and here at last was their worm-cast of a Production. 

But the second chance that came to me that day was more 
significant still. From the Kensington Museum I went to an 
afternoon tea, at a house where I was sure to meet some nice 
people. And among the first I met was an old friend who had 
been hearing some lectures on botany at the Kensington 
Museum, and been delighted by them. She is the kind of 
person who gets good out of everything, and she was quite 
right in being delighted; besides that, as I found by her 
account of them, the lectures were really interesting, and 
pleasantly given. She had expected botany to be dull, and 
had not found it so, and "had learned so much.'' On hearing 
this I proceeded naturally to inquire what; for my idea of 
her was that before she went to the lectures at all she had 
known more botany than she was likely to learn by them. 

7. lota. The Greek letter i. 

8. miscreant. Properly, disbelieving; Ruskin here plays on its 
resemblaoice to "miscreate." 



294 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

So she told me that she had learned first of all that ^^there 
were seven sorts of leaves." Now I have always a great 
suspicion of the number Seven; because, when I wrote The 
Seven Lamps of Architecture y^ it required all the ingenuity 
I was master of to prevent them from becoming Eight, or 
even Nine, on my hands. So I thought to myself that it would 
be very charming if there were only seven sorts of leaves, but 
that, perhaps, if one looked the woods and forests of the world 
carefully through, it was just possible that one might discover 
as many as eight sorts; and then where would my friend's 
new knowledge of botany be"? So I said, *^That was very 
pretty; but what more^" Then my friend told me that the 
lecturer said "the object of his lectures would be entirely 
accomplished if he could convince his hearers that there was 
no such thing as a flower."^^ Now in that sentence you have 
the most perfect and admirable summary given you of the 
general temper and purposes of modern science. It gives 
lectures on Botany, of which the object is to show that there 
is no such thing as a Flower; on Humanity, to show that there 
is no such thing as a Man ; and on Theology, to show there is 
BO such thing as a God. No such thing as a Man, but only a 
Mechanism; no such thing as a God, but only a series of 
Forces. The two faiths are essentially one: if you feel your- 
self to be only a machine, constructed to be a regulator of 
minor machinery, you will put your statue of such science on 
your Holborn Viaduct,^^ and necessarily recognize only major 
machinery as regulating you. 

I must explain the real meaning to you, however, of that 

9. Seven ^amps. One of Ruskin's early works, in which he 
^discussed the principles of architecture under the topics. Sacri- 
fice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, Obedience. 

10. no such thing" as a flower. In the following- letter Ruskin 
said, "I find I did much injustice to the botanical lecturer, as 
well as to my friend; . . . but having- some botanical notions 
myself, which I am vain of, I wanted the lecturer's to be wrong." 

11. Holborn Viaduct. An elevated structure in central London 
where High Holborn, one of the principal streets, crosses several 
thoroug-hfares which are on a lower level. The statue was erected 
in 1869 when the Viaduct was opened. 



RUSKIN / 295 

saying of the botanical lecturer, for it has a wide bearing. 
Some fifty years ago the poet Goethe discovered that all the 
parts of plants had a kind of common nature and would 
change into each other. Now, this was a true discovery and 
a notable one; and you will find that, in fact, all plants are 
composed of essentially two parts — the leaf and root; one 
loving the light, the other darkness; one liking to be clean, 
the other to be dirty ; one liking to grow for the most part up, 
the other for the most part down; and each having faculties 
and purposes of its own. But the pure one, which loves the 
light, has, above all things the purpose of being married to 
another leaf, and having child-leaves and children's children 
of leaves, to make the earth fair forever. And when the leaves 
marry, they put on wedding-robes, and are more glorious than 
Solomon in all his glory, and they have feasts of honey; and 
we call them ^^Flowers." 

In a certain sense, therefore, you see the botanical lecturer 
was quite right. There are no such things of Flowers — there 
are only gladdened Leaves. Nay, farther than this, there may 
be a dignity in the less happy but unwithering leaf, which is, 
in some sort, better than the brief lily in its bloom; which the 
great poets always knew well, Chaucer^^ before Goethe, and 
the writer of the First Psalm^^ before Chaucer. The botan- 
ical lecturer was, in a deeper sense than he knew, right. 

But in the deepest sense of all, the botanical lecturer was, 
to the extremity of wrongness, wrong; for leaf and root and 
fruit exist, all of them, only that there may be flowers. He 
disregarded the life and passion of the creature, which were 
its essence. Had he looked for these, he would have recog- 
nized that in the thought of Nature herself there is in a plant 
nothing else but its flowers. 

12. Chancer. Ruskin alludes to the poem of "The Flower and 
the Leaf," formerly attributed to Chaucer (see note on page 217 
above). 

13. Plrst Psalm. In which verse 3 speaks of the leaf that 
"shall not wither." 



296 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Now, in exactly the sense that modern science declares there 
is no such thing as a Flower, it has declared there is no such 
thing as a Man, but only a transitional fonn of Ascidians^* 
and apes. It may or may not be true — it is not of the smallest 
consequence whether it be or not. The real fact is that, rightly 
seen with human eyes, there is nothing else but Man ; that all 
animals and beings beside him are only made that they may 
change into him ; that the world truly exists only in the pres- 
ence of Man, acts only in the passion of Man. The essence of 
Light is in his eyes, the center of Force in his soul, the perti- 
nence of Action^^ in his deeds. And all true science — which 
my Savoyard guide rightly scorned me when he thought I had 
not — all true science is savoir vivre}^ But all your modern 
science is the contrary of that. It is savoir mourir. 
And of its very discoveries, such as tliey are, it cannot make use. 

That telegraphic signaling was a discovery, and conceivably, 
some day, may be a useful one. And there was some excuse 
for your being a little proud when, about last sixth of ApriP^ 
(Coeur de Lion's death-day, and Albert Diirer's), you knotted 
a copper wire all the way to Bombay, and flashed a message 
along it, and back. But what was the message, and what the 
answer? Is India the better for what you said to her?^* 

14. Ascldians. A rudimentary class of marine animals. 

15. pertinence of Action. Ruskin supplied this definition of 
the phrase as he used it: "action which pertains or properly 
t)elong-s to the agent and aim, as opposed to accidental and im- 
pertinent action." 

16. savoir vivre. Knowing- how to live. In the preceding let- 
ter Ruskin had told of a Savoyard guide, who, when "I had 
fatigued and provoked him with less cheerful views of the world 
than his own, . . . would fall back to my servant behind me, 
and console himself with a shrug of the shoulders, and a whis- 
pered, 'Le pauvre enfant, il ne salt pas vivre!' " ("Poor child, 
he does not know how to live.") Savoir mourir is "knowing how 
to die." 

17. last sixth of April. That is, in 1870. Coeur de lion is 
Richard I of England ("the Lion-Hearted") ; Albert Diirer a Ba- 
varian painter who died 1528. 

18. Is India the better, etc. Henry David Thoreau, the Ameri- 
can essayist who shared Ruskin's distrust of civilization, had said 
something very similar to this in his Waldett (published 1854): 
"We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from 
Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing 
Important to communicate." 



RUSKix 297 

Are you the better for what she replied? If not, you 
have only wasted an all-around-the-world's length of copper 
wire — which is, indeed, about the sum of your doing. If you 
had had perchance, two words of common sense to say, though 
you had taken wearisome time and trouble to send them, — 
though you had written them slowly in gold, and sealed them 
with a hundred seals, and sent a squadron of ships of the line 
to carry the scroll, and the squadron had fought its way round 
the Cape of Good Hope, through a year of storms, with loss of 
all its ships but one, — the two words of common sense would 
have been worth the carriage, and more. But you have not 
anything like so much as that to say, either to India or to any 
other place. 

You think it a great triumph to make the sun draw brown 
landscapes for you. That was also a discovery, and some day 
may be useful. But the sun had drawn landscapes before for 
you, not in brown, but in green and blue and all imaginable 
colors, here in England. Not one of you ever looked at them 
then ; not one of you cares for the loss of them now, when you 
have shut the sun out with smoke, so that he can draw nothing 
more except brown blots through a hole in a box. There was 
a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell,^^ once upon a 
time, divine as the Vale of Tempe;^^ you might have seen the 
gods there morning and evening — Apollo and all the sweet 
Muses of the light — ^walking in fair procession on the lawns of 
it and to and fro among the pinnacles of its crags. You cared 
neither for gods nor grass, but for cash (which you did not 
know the way to get) ; you thought you could get it by what 
the Times calls "Railroad Enterprise.'^ You Enterprised a 
Railroad through the valley — you blasted rocks away, heaped 
thousands of tons of shale into its lovely stream. The valley 
is gone, and the gods with it; and now every fool in Buxton 



19. Buxton and Bakewell. In the region known as the Derby- 
shire Peak, southeast of Manchester. 

20. Tempo. A beautiful valley below Mount Olympus, in Greece. 



298 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

€an be at Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell 
at Buxton; which you think a lucrative process of exchange — 
you Fools Everywhere. 

To talk at a distance, when you have nothing to say though 
you were ever so near; to go fast from this place to that, 
with nothing to do either at one or the other : — these are pow- 
ers certainly. Much more, power of increased Production, if 
you indeed had got it, would be something to boast of. But 
are you so entirely sure that you have got it — that the mortal 
disease of plenty, and afflictive affluence of good things, are all 
you have to dread? 

Observe. A man and a woman, with their children, properly 
trained, are able easily to cultivate as much ground as will 
feed them, to build as much wall and roof as will lodge them, 
and to spin and weave as much cloth as will clothe them. 
They can all be perfectly happy and healthy in doing this. 
Supposing that they invent machinery which will build, plow, 
thresh, cook, and weave, and that they have none of these 
things any more to do, but may read, or play croquet or 
cricket, all day long, I believe myself that they will neither be 
so good nor so happy as without the machines. But I waive 
my belief in this matter for the time. I will assume that 
they become more refined and moral persons, and that idle- 
ness is in future to be the mother of all good. But observe, 
I repeat, the power of your machine is only in enabling them 
to be idle. It will not enable them to live better than they 
did before, nor to live in greater numbers. Get your heads 
quite clear on this matter. Out of so much ground only so 
much living is to be got, with or without machinery. You 
may set a million of steam-plows to work on an acre, if you 
like — out of that acre only a given number of grains of corn 
will grow, scratch or scorch it as you will. So that the ques- 
tion is not at all whether, by having more machines, more of 
you can live. No machines will increase the possibilities of 
life. Suppose, for instance, you could get the oxen in your 



RUSKIN 299 

plow driven by a goblin, who would ask for no pay, not even a 
cream bowP^ (you have nearly managed to get it driven by 
an iron goblin, as it is) ; well, your furrow will take no more 
seeds than if you had held the stilts yourself. But instead 
of holding them you sit, I presume, on a bank beside the field, 
under an eglantine, — watch the goblin at his work, and read 
poetry. Meantime, your wife in the house has also got a 
goblin to weave and wash for her. And she is lying on the 
sofa, reading poetry. 

Now, as I said, I don^t believe jou would be happier so, but 
I am willing to believe it; only, since you are already such 
brave mechanists, show me at least one or two places where 
you are happier. Let me see one small example of approach 
to this seraphic condition. I can show you examples, millions 
of them, of happy people made happy by their own industry. 
Farm after farm I can show you, in Bavaria, Switzerland, 
the Tyrol, and such other places, where men and women are 
perfectly happy and good, without any iron servants. Show 
me, therefore, some English family, with its fiery familiar, 
happier than these. Or bring me — for I am not inconvincible 
by any kind of evidence — bring me the testimony of an English 
family or two to their increased felicity. Or if you cannot 
do so much as that, can you convince even themselves of it? 
They are perhaps happy, if only they knew how happy they 
were ; VirgiP^ thought so, long ago, of simple rustics ; but you 
hear at present your steam-propelled rustics are crying out 
that they are anything else than happy, and that they regard 
their boasted progress "in the light of a monstrous Sham."^* 

21. a cream "bowl. Traditionally set out to reward goblins for 
their tasks. Cf. Milton's "L' Allegro" : 

Tells how the drudging goblin sweat 
To earn his cream-bowl duly set. 

22. Vlrgfil. An allusion to a fine In the Georgics (Book ii): "O 
fortunatos nimium," etc. ("O too happy farmers, if only they 
knew their blessings," etc.) 

23. in the lig'ht of, etc. In the preceding letter Ruskin had 
quoted this from a circular of the "Cooperative Colonization. 
Company." 



300 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN ^M 

I must tell you one little thing, however, which greatly per- 
plexes my imagination of the relieved plowman sitting under 
his rose-bower, reading poetry. I have told it you before,^* 
indeed, but I forget where. There was really a great festiv- 
ity, and expression of satisfaction in the new order of things, 
down in Cumberland, a little while ago; some first of May, 
I think it was, a country festival such as the old heathens, 
who had no iron servants, used to keep with piping and danc- 
ing. So I thought, from the liberated country people — their 
work all done for them by goblins — ^we should have some 
extraordinary piping and dancing. But there was no dancing 
at all, and they could not even provide their own piping. They 
had their goblin to pipe for them. They walked in procession 
after their steam-plow, and their steam-plow whistled to them 
occasionally in the most melodious manner it could. Which 
seemed to me, indeed, a return to more than Arcadian sim- 
plicity; for in old Arcadia^^ plow-boys truly whistled as they 
went, for want of thought ;26 whereas here was verily a large 
company walking without thought, but not having any more 
even the capacity of doing their own whistling. 

But next, as to the inside of the house. Before you got 
your power-looms, a woman could always make herself a 
chemise and petticoat of bright and pretty appearance. I 
have seen a Bavarian peasant-woman at church in Munich, 
looking a much grander creature, and more beautifully dressed, 
than any of the crossed and embroidered angels in Hesse's 
high-art frescoes^^ (which happened to be just above her, so 

24. told it you "beforew In the work called The Crown of Wild 
Olive Ruskin had told, with horror, how some Cumberland country- 
people employed a whistling steam-plow to make the music for 
their festival. 

25. old Arcadia. Reputed to be the special home of rural sim- 
plicity and happiness. 

26. for want of tliong'lit. A quotation from a familiar couplet 
of Dryden's, in the poem "Cymon and Iphigenia": 

He trudged along, unknowing what he sought, 
And whistled as he went, for want of thought. 

27. Kesse'8 . . . frescoes. Hesse was a painter of the "DUs- 
seldorf school" (1798-1863). 



EUSKIN 301 

that I could look from one to the other). Well, here you are, 
in England, served by household demons, with five hundred 
fingers at least, weaving, for one that used to weave in the 
days of Minerva. You ought to be able to show me five hun- 
dred dresses for one that used to be; tidiness ought to have 
become five-hundredfold tidier; tapestry should be increased 
into cinque-cento-iold^^ iridescence of tapestry. Not only 
your peasant-girl ought to be lying on the sofa, reading 
poetry, but she ought to have in her wardrobe five hundred 
petticoats instead of one. Is that, indeed, your issue? or are 
you only on a curiously crooked way to it? 

It is just possible, indeed, that you may not have been 
allowed to get the use of the goblin's work — that other people 
may have got the use of it, and you none; because, perhaps, 
you have not been able to evoke goblins wholly for your own 
personal service, but have been borrowing goblins from the 
capitalist, and paying interest in the "position of William,''"^ 
on ghostly self -going planes.^^ But suppose you had laid by 
capital enough, yourselves, to hire all the demons in the world 
— nay all that are inside of it; are you quite sure you know 
what you might best set them to work at, and what "useful 
things" you should command them to make for you? I told 
you, last month, that no economist going (whether by steam 
or ghost) knew what are useful things and what are not. Very 

28. cincLue-cento-fold. Five-hundred-fold; perhaps with inci- 
dental allusion to the "cinque-cento" period of Italian art — the 
16th century. 

29. "position of IVilliain." This is a reference to the first letter 
of the series, in which Ruskin had illustrated what he thought 
to be the fallacious character of the existing- business system, 
as follows: "James m^akes a plane, lends it to William on 1st 
January for a year. William gives him a plank for the loan of 
it, wears it out, and makes another for James which he gives 
him on 31st December. On 1st January he again borrows the 
new one; and the arrangement is repeated continuously. The 
position of William therefore is, that he makes a plane every 
31st December, lends it to James till the next day, and pays 
Jam.es a plank annually for the privilege of lending it to him 
on that evening." 

30. g-liostly self-g-oingf planes. That is, steam-planes, propelled 
by the "goblin" steam. 



302 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 



V 



few of you know, yourselves, except by bitter experience of 
the want of them. And no demons, either of iron or spirit, 
can ever make them. 

There are three material things, not only useful but essential 
to life. No' one "knows how to live" till he has got them. 

These are Pure Air, Water, and Earth. 

There are three immaterial things, not only useful, but 
essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got 
them also. 

These are Admiration, Hope, and Love,^^ 

Admiration — the power of discerning and taking delight 
in what is beautiful in visible Form and lovely in human 
Character, and, necessarily, striving to produce what is beau- 
tiful in form and to become what is lovely in character. 

Hope — -the recognition, by true foresight, of better things 
to be reached hereafter, whether by ourselves or others ; neces- 
sarily issuing in the straightforward and undisappointable 
effort to advance, according to our proper power, the gaining 
of them. 

Love — ^both of family and neighbor, faithful and satisfied. 

These are the six chiefly useful things to be got by Political 
Economy, when it has become a science. I will briefly tell 
you what modem Political Economy — the great savoir mourir 
— is doing with them. 

The first three, I said, are Pure Air, Water, and Earth. 

Heaven gives you the main elements of these. You can 
destroy them at your pleasure, or increase, almost without 
limit, the available quantities of them. 

You can vitiate the air by your manner of life and of death, 
to any extent. You might easily vitiate it so as to bring such 
a pestilence on the globe as would end all of you. You, or 
your fellows, German and French, are at present vitiating it 
to the best of your power in every direction — chiefly at this 

31. Admiration, etc. Ruskin cites a line from Wordsworth's 
Excursion (Book iv) : "We live by admiration, hope, and love." 



RUSKIN 303 

moment with corpses, and animal and vegetable ruin in war, 
changing men, horses, and garden-stuff into noxious gas. But 
everywhere, and all day long, you are vitiating it with foul 
chemical exhalations; and the horrible nests, which you call 
towns, are little more than laboratories for the distillation into 
heaven of venomous smokes and smells, mixed with effluvia 
from decaying animal matter and infectious miasmata from 
purulent disease. 

On the other hand, your power of purifying the air, by deal- 
ing properly and swiftly with all substances in corruption, by 
absolutely forbidding noxious manufactures, and by planting 
in all soils the trees which cleanse and invigorate earth and 
atmosphere, is literally infinite. You might make every breath 
of. air you draw, food. 

Secondly, your power over the rain and river-waters of the 
earth is infinite. You can bring rain where you will, by plant- 
ing wisely and tending carefully; drought where you will, by 
ravage of woods and neglect of the soil. You might have the 
rivers of England as pure as the crystal of the rock ; beautiful 
m falls, in lakes, in living pools ; so full of fish that you might 
take them out with your hands instead of nets. Or you may 
do always as you have done now — turn every river of England 
into a common sewer, so that you cannot so much as baptize 
an English baby but with filth, unless you hold its face out in 
the rain ; and even that falls dirty. 

Then for the third, earth, meant to be nourishing for you 
and blossoming. You have learned about it that there is no 
such thing as a fiower, and as far as your scientific hands and 
scientific brains, inventive of explosive and deathful instead 
of blossoming and life-giving dust, can contrive, you have 
turned the Mother Earth, Demeter, into the Avenger Earth, 
Tisiphone^^ — with the voice of your brother^s blood crying out 
of it in one wild harmony round all its murderous sphere. 

32. Demeter .' . . Tisiplione. Demeter was goddess of the 
earth's fertility; Tisiphone one of the Furies. 



304 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

That is what you have done for the Three Material Useful 
Things. 

Then for the Three Immaterial Useful Things. For Admi- 
ration, you have learned contempt and conceit. There is no 
lovely thing ever yet done by man that you care for, or can 
understand; but you are persuaded you are able to do much 
finer things yourselves. You gather an exhibit together, as if 
equally instructive, what is infinitely bad with what is infin- 
itely good. You do not know which is which ; you instinctively 
prefer the Bad, and do more of it. You instinctively hate the 
Good, and destroy it. 

Then, secondly, for Hope. You have not so much spirit of 
it in you as to begin any plan which will not pay for ten years ; 
nor so much intelligence of it in you (either politicians or 
workmen) as to be able to form one clear idea of what you 
would like your country to become. 

Then, thirdly, for Love. You were ordered by the Founder 
of your religion to love your neighbor as yourselves. You 
have founded an entire science of Political Economy on what 
you have stated to be the constant instinct of man — the desire 
to defraud his neighbor. And you have driven your women 
jnad, so that they ask no more for Love nor for fellowship 
with you, but stand against you, and ask for ^^justice.'' 

Are there any of you who are tired of all this? Any of 
you. Landlords or Tenants? Employers or Workmen? Are 
there any landlords, any masters, who' would like better to be 
served by men than by iron devils? Any tenants, any work- 
men, who can be true to their leaders and to each other? who 
can vow to work and to live faithfully, for the sake of the 
joy of their homes? 

Will any such give the tenth of what they have, and of what 
they earn, not to emigrate with, but to stay in England with, 
and do what is in their hands and hearts to make her a happy 
England? 

I am not rich (as people now estimate riches), and great 



RUSKIN 305 

part of what I have is already engaged in maintaining art- 
workmen, or for other objects more or less of public utility. 
The tenth of whatever is left to me, estimated as accurately 
as I can (you shall see the accounts), I will make over to you 
in perpetuity, with the best security that English law can 
give, on Christmas Day of this year, with engagement to add 
the tithe of whatever I earn afterwards. Who else will help, 
with little or much? the object of such fund being to begin, 
and gradually — no matter how slowly — to increase the buying 
and securing of land in England, which shall not be built upon, 
but cultivated by Englishmen with their own hands and such 
help of force as they can find in wind and wave. I do not 
care with how many or how few this thing is begun, nor on 
what inconsiderable scale — if it be but in two or three poor 
men's gardens. So much, at least, I can buy, myself, and 
give them. If no help come, I have done and said what I 
could, and there will be an end. If any help come to me, it is 
to be on the following conditions: 

We will try to make some small piece of English ground 
beautiful, peaceful, and fruitful. We will have no steam- 
engines upon it, and no railroads; we will have no untended 
or unthought-of creatures on it; none wretched but the sick; 
none idle but the dead. We will have no liberty upon it, 
but instant obedience to known law and appointed persons; 
no equality^ ^ upon it, but recognition of every betterness that 
we can find, and reprobation of every worseness. When we 
want to go anywhere, we will go there quietly and safely, not 
at forty miles an hour in the risk of our lives; when we want 
to carry anything anywhere, we will carry it either on the 
backs of beasts, or on our own, or in carts or boats. We 
will have plenty of flowers and vegetables in our gardens, 
plenty of com and grass in our fields, — and few bricks. We 

33. no liberty ... no ectuality. Ruskin uses these watch- 
words of the French Republic as symbols of the (in his view) 
foolish modern striving for individual liberty in place of the old 
virtues, loyalty, content, and obedience. 



306 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

will have some music and poetry; the children shall learn to 
dance to it and sing it; perhaps some of the old people, in 
time, may also. We will have some art, moreover; we will 
at least try if, like the Greeks, we can't make some pots. 
The Greeks used to paint pictures of gods on their pots. We, 
probably, cannot do as much; but we may put some pictures 
of insects on them, and reptiles — butterflies and frogs, if 
nothing better. There was an excellent old potter^* in France 
who used to put frogs and vipers into his dishes, to the admira- 
tion of mankind ; we can surely put something nicer than that. 
Little by little, some higher art and imagination may manifest 
themselves among us, and feeble rays of science may dawn for 
us : — botany, though too dull to dispute the existence of 
flowers; and history, though too simple to question the nativity 
of men; nay, even perhaps an uncalculating and uncovetous 
wisdom, as of rude Magi, presenting,' at such nativity, gifts of 
gold and frankincense. 

Faithfully yours, 

John Ruskin. 

34. Old potter. Bernard Palissy, who died 1589. 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



1 



[William Makepeace Thackeray was born in India in 1811; after 
the death of his father (a g-overnment officer) he was sent to 
Eng-land to be educated, and from 1822 to 1828 was at the famous 
boys' school in London called the Charterhouse. He attended 
Trinity College, Cambridge, but did not graduate; then traveled 
on the Continent, and for a time studied law. Still not finding 
himself v/ith any satisfactory vocation, he went to Paris to 
study drawing, and won some reputation as a caricaturist. From 
1887 he contributed both stories and pictures to various London 
journals, becoming famous especially through his "Snob Papers" 
in Punch. His career as an important novelist opened with 
Vanity Fair, 1848, and continued throughout his life. In 1855 he 
lectured in America. From 1860 to 1862 he edited the Comhill 
Magazine, for which he wrote not only stories but the essays 
called "Roundabout Papers." He died 1863. Thackeray's per- 
sonality was friendly and lovable, though somewhat given to 
satire.] 



TUNBRIDGE TOYS^ 

I WONDER whether those little silver pencil-cases with a 

lovable almanac at the butt-end are still favorite implements 

with boys, and whether peddlers still hawk them about the 

country? Are there peddlers and hawkers still, or are rustics 

and children grown too sharp to deal with them? Those 

pencil-cases, as far as my memory serves me, were not of 

much use. The screw, upon which the movable almanac 

turned, was constantly getting loose. The 1 of the table 

would work from its moorings, under Tuesday or Wednesday, 

as the case might be, and you would find, on examination, 

that Th. or W. w^as the 23^ of the month (which was absurd 

1. This is No. 7 of the "Roundabout Papers." The word "toys" 
in the title means trifles or caprices. Tunbridge Wells, where 
the essay was written, is one of the popular watering-places of 
southern England, and in the eighteenth century was famous 
as a resort of fashion. 

307 



308 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

on the face of the thing), and in a word your cherished pencil- 
case an utterly unreliable time-keeper. Nor was this a matter 
of wonder. Consider the position of a pencil-case in a boy's 
pocket. You had hard-bake^ in it; marbles, kept in your 
purse when the money was all gone; your mother's purse 
knitted so fondly and supplied with a little bit of gold, long 
since — prodigal little son ! — scattered amongst the swine — 
I mean amongst brandy -balls, open tarts, three-cornered puffs, 
and similar abominations. You had a top and string ; a knife ; 
a piece of cobbler's wax; two or three bullets; a Little 
Warbler:^ and I for my part, remember, for a considerable 
period, a brass-barreled pocket pistol (which would fire beau- 
tifully, for with it I shot off a button from Butt Major's* 
jacket) ; — ^with all these things, and ever so many more, clink- 
ing and rattling in your pockets, and your hands, of course, 
keeping them in perpetual movement, how could you expect 
your movable almanac not to be twisted out of its place now- 
and again — your pencil-case to be bent — your licorice-water 
not to leak out of your bottle over the cobbler's wax, your 
bull's-eyes^ not to ram up the lock and barrel of your pistol, 
and so forth? 

In the month of June, thirty-seven years ago,^ I bought 
one of those pencil-cases from a boy whom I shall call Hawker, 
and who was in my form.'' Is he dead? Is he a millionaire? 
Is he a bankrupt now? He was an immense screw^ at school, 
and I believe to this day that the value of the thing for which 
I owed and eventually paid three-and-sixpence, was in reality 
not one-and-nine. 

2. liard-bake. A brittle nut candy made of brown sugar or 
molasses. 

3. Iiittle Warbler. Either a cheap song book or a musical toy. 

4. Butt Major. The older Butt. In English schools two boys 
of the same nam.e were distinguished as "major" and "minor." 

5. "buirs-eyes. Marbles; or perhaps candy-balls. 

6. tMrty-seven years a^fo. That is, in 1823, when Thackeray 
was at Charterhouse (see the biographical note above). 

7. form. Class. 

8. screw. Hard dealer. 



THACKERAY 309 

I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused 
myself with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this 
pleasure wore olf. The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, 
and Hawker, a large and violent boy, was exceedingly unpleas- 
ant as a creditor. His constant remark was, ^^When are you 
going to pay me that three-and-sixpence ? What sneaks your 
relations must be ! They come to see you. You go out to 
them on Saturdays and Sundays, and they never give you 
anything! Don't tell me, you little humbug!'' and so forth. 
The truth is that my relations were respectable; but my 
parents were making a tour, in Scotland; and my friends in 
London, whom I used to go and see, v/ere most kind to me, 
certainly, but somehow never tipped me. That term, of May 
to August, 1823, passed in agonies then, in consequence of 
my debt to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a calendar 
pencil-case in comparison with the doubt and torture of mind 
occasioned by the sense of the debt, and the constant reproach 
of that fellow's scowling eyes and gloomy, coarse reminders? 
How was I to pay off such a debt out of sixpence a week? 
Ludicrous ! Why did not some one come to see me, and tip me? 
Ah ! my dear sir, if you have any little friends at school, go 
and see them, and do the natural thing by them. You won't 
miss the sovereign. You don't know what a blessing it will 
be to them. Don't fancy they are too old — try 'em. And 
they will remember you, and bless you in future days; and 
their gratitude shall accompany your dreary after-life; and 
they shall meet you kindly when thanks for kindness are scant. 
mercy! Shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave me, 
Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? 
In that very term, a relation of mine was going to India. I 
actually was fetched from school in order to take leave of 
him. I am afraid I told Hawker of this circumstance. I 
own I speculated upon my friend's giving me a pound. A 
pound ? Pooh ! A relation going to India, and deeply affected 
at parting from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds 



310 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAX 

to the dear fellow ! There was Hawker when I came back — 
of course there he was. As he looked in my scared face, his 
turned livid with rage. He muttered curses, terrible from 
the lips of so young a boy. My relation, about to cross the 
ocean to fill a lucrative appointment, asked me with much 
interest about my progress at school, heard me construe a 
passage of Eutropius,^ the pleasing Latin work on which I 
was then engaged; gave me a God bless you, and sent me 
back to school; upon my word of honor, without so much 
as a half-crown ! It is all very well, my dear sir, to say that . 
boys contract habits of expecting tips from their parents^ 
friends, that they become avaricious, and so forth. Avar- 
icious ! fudge ! Boys contract habits of tart and toifee-eating, _ 
which they do not carry into after life. On the contrary, 
I wish I did like ^em. What raptures of pleasure one could 
have now for five shillings, if one could but pick it off the 
pastry-cook's tray! No. If you have any little friends at 
school, out with your half-crowns, my friend, and impart to 
those little ones the little fleeting joys of their age. 

Well, then. At the beginning of August, 1823, Bartlemy- 
tide^° holidays came, and I was to go to my parents, who 
were at Tunbridge Wells. My place in the coach was taken 
by my tutor's servants — "Bolt-in-Tun'V^ Fleet street, seven 
o'clock in the morning, was the word. My tutor, the Rev. 
Edward P , to whom I hereby present my best compli- 
ments, had a parting inter\dew with me: gave me my little 
account for my governor: the remaining part of the coach 
hire; five shillings for my own expenses; and some five-and- 
twenty shillings on an old account which bad been overpaid, 
and was to be restored to my family. 

Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six. Ouf! 

9. Entropltis. A Latin historian of the fourth century. 

10. Bartlemy-tide. The season of the church festival of St. 
Bartholomew, August 24. 

11. Bolt-in-Tiua. The name of the inn from which the coach 
started. 



I 



THACKERAY 311 

What a weight it was off my mind! (He was a Norfolk boy, 
and used to go home from Mrs. Nelson's ^^Bell Inn", Aldgate 
— but that is not to the point.) The next morning, of course, 
we were an hour before the time. I and another boy shared 
a hackney-coach; two-and-six: porter for putting luggage on 
coach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. 
Easherwell, my companion, went into the ^^Bolt-in-Tun'' coifee- 
room, and had a good breakfast. I couldn't; because, though 
I had five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money, I had 
none of my own, you see. 

I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still 
remember how strongly I had that resolution in my mind. 
But there was that hour to wait. A beautiful August morn- 
ing — I am very hungry. There is Rashenvell ^^tucking" away 
in the coffee-room. I pace the street, as sadly almost as if I 
had been coming to school, not going thence. I turn into a 
court by mere chance — I vow it was by mere chance — and 
there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window : Coffee, 
twopence. Bound of buttered toast, tivopenee. And here am 
I, hungry, penniless, with five-and-twenty shillings of my 
parents' money in my pocket. 

What would you have done ? You see I had had my money, 
and spent it in that pencil-case affair. The five-and-twenty 
shillings were a trust — by me to be handed over. 

But then would my parents wish their only child to be 
actually without breakfast*? Having this money, and being 
so hungry, so very hungry, mightn't I take ever so little? 
Mightn't I at home eat as much as I chose *? 

Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence. 
I remember the taste of the coffee and toast to this day — a 
peculiar, muddy, not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coffee — a 
rich, rancid, yet not-buttered-enough, delicious toast. The 
waiter had nothing. At any rate, fourpence I know was the 
sum I spent. And the hunger appeased, I got on the coach 
a guilty being. 



312 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

At the last stage, — ^what is its name'? I have forgotten in 
seven-and-thirty years, — there is an inn with a little green and 
trees before it ; and by the trees there is an open carriage. 
It is our carriage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the 
horses ; and my parents in the carriage. — Oh ! how I had been 
counting the days until this one came! Oh! how happy had 
I been to see them yesterday ! But there was that f ourpence. 
All the journey down the toast had choked me, and the coffee 
poisoned me. 

I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence that 
I forgot the maternal joy and caresses, the tender, paternal 
voice. I pull out the twenty-four shillings and eightpence 
with a trembling hand. 

^^Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr. P owes 

you, all but the fourpence. I owed three-and-sixpence to 
Hawker out of my money for a pencil-case, and I had none 
left, and I took fourpence of yours, and had some coffee at 
a shop.'^ 

I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this 
confession. 

"My dear boy,'^ says the governor, "why didn't you go and 
breakfast at the hotel f' 

"He must be near starved,'^ said my mother. 

I had confessed; I had been a prodigal; I had been taken 
back to my parents^ arms again. It was not a very great 
crime as yet, or a very long career of prodigality; but don't 
we know that a boy who takes a pin which is not his own, 
will take a thousand pounds when occasion serves, bring his 
parents' gray heads with sorrow to the grave, and carry his 
own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon 
whom our friend Mr. Sala^^ has been discoursing. Dick only 
began by playing pitch-and-toss on a tombstone ; playing fair, 
for what we know: and even for that sin he was promptly 

12. Mr. Sala. Georg-e Augustus Sala (1828-1895), a journalist 

and writer of tales. 



THACKERAY 313 

caned by the beadle. The bamboo was inefectual to cane 
that reprobate's bad courses out of him. From pitch-and- 
toss he proceeded to manslaughter if necessary : to highway 
robbery; to Tybum^^ and the rope there. Ah! heaven be 
thanked, my parents' heads are still above the grass, and mine 
still out of the noose. 

As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common 
and the rocks, the strange familiar place which I remember 
forty years ago. Boys saunter over the green with stumps^* 
and cricket-bats. Other boys gallop by on the riding-master's 
hacks. I protest it is Cramp, Riding Master , as it used to be 
in the reign of George IV., and that Centaur Cramp must 
be at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a footman 
with a bundle of novels from the library. Are they as good 
as our novels'? Oh! how delightful they were! Shades of 
Valancour,^^ awful ghost of Manfroni,^^ how I shudder at 
your appearance ! Sweet image of Thaddeus of Warsaw,^'' 
how often has this almost infantile hand tried to depict you 
in a Polish cap and richly embroidered tights! And as for 
the Corinthian Tom^^ in light blue pantaloons and Hessians,^^ 
and Jerry Hawthorn from the country, can all the fashion, 
can all the splendor of real life which these eyes have sub- 
sequently beheld, can all the wit I have heard or read in later 
times, compare with your fashion, with your brilliancy, with 
your delightful grace, and sparkling, vivacious rattle? 

13. Tyburn. Formerly the place of public execution in London. 

14. stnnips. The three uprig-ht stakes constituting the wicket. 
In cricket. 

15. Valancour. A character in the novel called The Mysteries of 
Udolpho (1794), by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe; famous in its day for its 
thrilling, "creepy" scenes. 

16. Manfroni. For the full title see page 314. 

17. Thaddeus of Warsaw, The hero of a romance of the same 
name, by Jane Porter (1803). 

18. Corinthian Tom, etc. Characters in a story called Life in 
London (see the full title in the following paragraph), by Pierce 
Egan. It was published in monthly shilling numbers, beginning 
1821, and dealt with sporting life in London. 

19. Hessians. Boots; see note on page 229. 



314 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Who knows? They may have kept those very books at the 
library still — at the well-remembered library on the Pantiles, ^^ 
where they sell that delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. I 
will go and see. I wend my way to the Pantiles, the queer 
little old-world Pantiles, where, a hundred years since, so 
much good company came to take its pleasure. Is it pos- 
sible that, in the past century, gentlefolks of the first rank 
(as I read lately in a lecture on George 11.^^ in the Cornhill 
Magazine) assembled there and entertained each other with 
gaming, dancing, fiddling, and tea? There are fiddlers, harp- 
ers, and trumpeters performing at this moment in a weak 
little old balcony, but where is the fine company? Where 
are the earls, duchesses, bishops, and magnificent embroidered 
gamesters? A half dozen of children and their nurses are 
listening to the musicians; an old lady or two in a poke 
bonnet passes, and for the rest, I see but an uninteresting 
population of native tradesmen. As for the library, its win- 
dow is full of pictures of burly theologians, and their works, 
sermons, apologues, and so forth. Can I go in and ask the 
young ladies at the counter for ^^Manfroni, or the One- 
handed Monk,'' and "Life in London, or the Adventures of 
Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, Esq., and their friend 
Bob Logic"? — absurd. I turn away abashed from the case- 
ment — from the Pantiles — no longer Pantiles, but Parade. I 
stroll over the Common and survey the beautiful purple hills 
around, twinkling with a thousand bright villas, which have 
sprung up over this charming ground since first I saw it. 
What an admirable scene of peace and plenty ! What a 
delicious air breathes over the heath, blows the cloud shadows 
across it, and murmurs through the full-clad trees! Can the 
world show a land fairer, richer, more cheerful? I see a 

20. the Pantiles. The old plaza or "para-de" at Tunbridgre, still 
the center of town life; named from an old style of tiled walk. 

21, lecture on Georgre II. By Thackeray himself; one of the 
lectures on "The Four Georges" which he gave in America in 
1855. 



THACKERAY 315 

portion of it when I look up from the window at which I 
write. But fair scene, green woods, bright terraces gleaming 
in sunshine, and purple clouds swollen with summer rain — 
nay, the very pages over which my head bends — disappear 
from before my eyes. They are looking backward, back into 
k forty years off, into a dark room, into a little house hard by 
on the Common here, in the Bartlemy-tide holidays. The 
parents have gone to town for two days; the house is all his 
own, his own and a grim old maid-servant's, and a little boy 
is seated at night in the lonely drawing-room, poring over 
^^Manfroni, or the One-handed Morik," so frightened that he 
scarcely dares to turn round. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

[Matthew Arnold was bom in 1822; a son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, 
the famous Head Master of Rugrby School, in whose memory he 
wrote the noble poem called "Rugby Chapel." After completing 
his course of study at Oxford he became first a Fellow of Oriel 
College, then a teacher at Rugby, then secretary to the Marquis 
of Lansdowne, and finally a government inspector of schools; 
this latter position he held until his retirement on a pension in 
1883. Meantime he attained distinction as a man of letters, first 
as a poet, in volumes of verse published between 1849 and 1855, 
then as critic of literature and society, in essays and lectures 
published between 1861 and 1875. Some of Arnold's best literary 
criticism first appeared in lectures given at Oxford while he 
served as Professor of Poetry in the University (a lectureship 
rather than a professorship in tVie ordinary sense). In his social 
criticism he became known as an "apostle of culture," especially 
to the English "middle class" of which he was himself a member 
and which he thought had been intellectually and spiritually 
degraded by the material content and prosperity of the manufac- 
turing era. Arnold lectured twice in America, in 1884 and 1886. 
He died in 1888.] 



SWEETNESS AND LIGHT^ 

The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity ; some- 
times, indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness and 
vanity. The culture which is supposed to plume itself on a 
smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten 
by nothing so intellectual as curiosity; it is valued either out 
of sheer vanity and ignorance or else as an engine of social 
and class distinction, separating its holder, like a badge or 
title, from other people who have not got it. No serious man 

1. This essay is the most significant chapter (abbreviated) 
of what is on the whole Arnold's most representative book, called 
Culture and Anarchy. The title means Beauty and Intelligence; 
see the passage on page 327. 

316 



ARNOLD . 317 

would call this culture, or attach any value to it, as culture, 
at all. To find the real ground for the very different estimate 
which serious people will set upon culture, we must find some 
motive for culture in the terms of which may lie a real 
ambiguity; and such a motive the word curiosity gives us. 

I have before now pointed out that we English do not, like 
the foreigners, use this word in a good sense as well as in a 
bad sense. With us the word is always used in a somewhat 
disapproving sense. A liberal and intelligent eagerness about 
the things of the mind may be meant by a foreigner when 
he speaks of curiosity, but with us the word always conveys 
a certain notion of frivolous and unedifying activity. In the 
Quarterly Bevietv, some little time ago, was an estimate of 
the celebrated French critic, M. Sainte-Beuve,^ and a very 
inadequate estimate it in my judgment was. And its inade- 
quacy consisted chiefly in this : that in our English way it left 
out of sight the double sense really involved in the word 
curiosity, thinking enough was said to stamp M. Sainte-Beuve 
with blame if it was said that he was impelled in his opera- 
tions as a critic by curiosity, and omitting either to perceive 
that M, Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other people with 
him, would consider that this was praiseworthy and not blame- 
worthy, or to point out why it ought really to be accounted 
worthy of blame and not of praise. For, as there is a curi- 
osity about intellectual matters which is futile, and merely 
a disease, so there is certainly a curiosity, — a desire after the 
things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the 
pleasure of seeing them as they are, — ^which is, in an intelli- 
gent being, natural and laudable. Nay, and the very desire 
to see things as they are implies a balance and regulation of 
mind which is not often attained without fruitful effort, and 
which is the very opposite of the blind and diseased impulse 
of mind which is what we mean to blame when we blame 

2. M. Sainte-Beuve. A distinguished French critic (1804- 
1869). 



318 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

curiosity. Montesquieu^ says: "The first motive which ought 
to impel us to study is the desire to augment the excellence 
of our nature, and to render an intelligent being yet more 
intelligent.'^ This is the true ground to assign for the genu- 
ine scientific passion, however manifested, and for culture, 
viewed simply as a fruit of this passion; and it is a worthy 
ground, even though we let the term curiosity stand to 
describe it. 

But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the 
scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, 
natural and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the 
ground of it. There is a view in which all the love of our 
neighbor, the impulses towards action, help, and beneficence, 
the desire for remo\dng human error, clearing human con- 
fusion, and diminishing human misery, the noble aspiration 
to leave the world better and happier than we found it, — 
motives eminently such as are called social, — come in as part 
of the grounds of culture, and the main and pre-eminent part. 
Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in 
curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; 
it is a study of perfection. It moves by the force, not merely 
or primarily of the scientific passion for pure knowledge, but 
also of the moral and social passion for doing good. As, in 
the first view of it, we took for its worthy motto Montesquieu's 
words : '^To render an intelligent being yet more intelligent !'' 
so, in the second view of it, there is no better motto which it 
can have than these words of Bishop Wilson:* "To make 
reason and the will of God prevail!" 

Only, whereas the passion for doing good is apt to be over- 
hasty in determining what reason and the will of God say, 
because its turn is for acting rather than thinking and it 
wants to be beginning to act; and whereas it is apt to take 

3. MozLtesqnieii. A French social philosopher and critic (1689- 
1755). 

4. Bishop Wilson. Dr. Thomas Wilson (died 1755), author of 
a work called Maxims, which Arnold frequently quoted and praised. 



fa. 



ARNOLD 319 

its own conceptions, which, proceed from its own state of 
development and share in all the imperfections and immatur- 
ities of this, for a basis of action; what distinguishes culture 
is, that it is possessed by the scientific passion as well as by 
the passion of doing good; that it demands worthy notions of 
reason and the will of God, and does not readily suffer its 
own crude conceptions to substitute themselves for them. And 
knowing that no action or institution can be salutary and 
stable which is not based on reason and the will of God, it 
is not so bent on acting and instituting, even with the great 
aim of diminishing human error and misery ever before its 
thoughts, but that it can remember that acting and instituting 
are of little use, unless we know how and what we ought to 
act and to institute. 

This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than 
that other, which is founded solely on the scientific passion for 
knowing. But it needs times of faith and ardor, times when 
the intellectual horizon is opening and widening all around 
us, to flourish in. And is not the close and bounded intel- 
lectual horizon within which we have long lived and moved 
now lifting up, and are not new lights finding free passage 
to shine in upon us? For a long time there was no passage 
for them to make their way in upon us, and then it was of 
no use to think of adapting the world's action to them. Where 
was the hope of making reason and the will of God prevail 
among people who had a' routine which they had christened 
reason and the will of God, in which they were inextricably 
bound, and beyond which they had no power of looking? But 
now the iron force of adhesion to the old routine — social, 
political, religious — has wonderfully yielded; the ii'on force 
of exclusion of all which is new has wonderfully yielded. The 
danger now is, not that people should obstinately refuse to 
allow anything but their old routine to pass for reason and 
the will of God, but either that they should allow some novelty 
or other to pass for these too easily, or else that they should 



820 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

underrate the importance of them altogether, and think it 
enough to follow action for its own sake, without troubling 
themselves to make reason and the will of God prevail therein. 
Now, then, is the moment for culture to be of service, culture 
which believes in making reason and the will of God prevail, 
believes in perfection, is the study and pursuit of perfection, 
and is no longer debarred, by a rigid invincible exclusion of 
whatever is new, from getting acceptance for its ideas, simply 
because they are new\ 

The moment this view of culture is seized, the moment it is 
regarded not solely as the endeavor to see things as they are, 
to draw towards a knowledge of the universal order which 
seems to be intended and aimed at in the world, and which it is 
a man's happiness to go along with or his misery to go counter 
to, — to learn, in short, the will of God, — the moment, I say, 
culture is considered not merely as the endeavor to see and 
learn this, but as the endeavor, also to make it prevail^ the 
moral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes man- 
ifest. The mere endeavor to see and learn the truth for our 
own personal satisfaction is indeed a commencement for mak- 
ing it prevail, a preparing the way for this, which always 
serves this, and is wrongly, therefore, stamped with blame 
absolutely in itself and not only in its caricature and degen- 
eration. But perhaps it has got stamped with blame, and 
disparaged with the dubious title of curiosity, because in com- 
parison with this wider endeavor of such great and plain 
utility it looks selfish, petty, and unprofitable. 

And religion, the greatest and most important of the efforts 
by which the human race has manifested its impulse to perfect 
itself, — religion, that voice of the deepest human experience, 
— does not only enjoin and sanction the aim which is the great 
aim of culture, the aim of setting ourselves to ascertain what 
perfection is and to make it prevail; but also, in determining 
generally in what human perfection consists, religion comes to 
a conclusion identical with that which culture — culture seek- 



ARNOLD 321 

ing the determination of this question through all the voices of 
human experience which have been heard upon it, of art, sci- 
ence, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as of religion, in 
order to give a greater fullness and certainty to its solution — 
likewise reaches. Religion says : The kingdom of God is within 
you\^ and culture, in like manner, places human perfection in 
an internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our 
humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality. It 
places it in the ever-increasing efficacy and in the general har- 
monious expansion of those gifts of thought and feeling, which 
make the peculiar dignity, wealth, and happiness of human 
nature. As I have said on a former occasion : "It is in making 
endless additions to itself, in the endless expansion of its 
powers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that the 
spirit of the human race finds its ideal. To reach this ideal, 
culture is an indispensable aid, and that is the true value of 
culture." Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a 
becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives 
it; and here, too, it coincides with religion. 

And because men are all members of one great whole, and 
the sympathy which is in human nature will not allow one 
member to be indifferent to the rest or to have a perfect wel- 
fare independent of the rest, the expansion of our humanity, 
to suit the idea of perfection which culture forms, must be a 
general expansion. Perfection, as culture conceives it, is not 
possible while the individual remains isolated. The individual 
is required, under pain of being stunted and enfeebled in his 
ov/n development if he disobeys, to carry others along with 
him in his march towards perfection, to be continually doing 
all he can to enlarge and increase the volume of the human 
stream sweeping thitherward. And here, once more, culture 
lays on us the same obligation as religion, which says, as 
Bishop Wilson has admirably put it, that "to promote the king- 
dom of God is to increase and hasten one^s own happiness." 

5. The kingdom, etc. See Luke 17:21. 



322 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

But, finally, perfection — as culture from a thorough dism- 
terested study of human nature and human experience learns 
to conceive it — is a harmonious expansion of all the powers 
which make the beauty and worth of human nature, and is not 
<?onsistent with the over-development of any one power at the 
expense of the rest. Here culture goes beyond religion, as 
religion is generally conceived by us. 

If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious 
perfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists in 
becoming something rather than in having something, in an 
inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set 
of circumstances, — it is clear that culture, instead of being 
the frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright,^ and Mr. 
Frederic Harrison,'' and many other Liberals are apt to call it, 
has a very important function to fulfill for mankind. And this 
function is particularly important in our modern world, of 
which the whole civilization is, to a much greater degree than 
the civilization of Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, 
and tends constantly to become more so. But above all in our 
own country has culture a weighty part to perform, because 
here that mechanical character, which civilization tends to take 
everywhere, is shown in the most eminent degree. Indeed 
nearly all the characters of perfection, as culture teaches us to 
fix them, meet in this country with some powerful tendency 
which thwarts them and sets them at defiance. The idea of 
perfection as an inward condition of the mind and spirit is at 
variance with the mechanical and material civilization in esteem 
with us, and nowhere, as I have said, so much in esteem as 
with us. The idea of perfection as a general expansion of the 
human family is at variance with our strong individualism, our 
hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of the individ- 

6. Mr. Brig-ht. John Bright (1811-1889), a well-known leader 
of the Liberal Party, representing- the middle-class manufacturingr 
district of Birmingham in Parliament. 

7. Bffr. Prederic Harrison. A social philosopher and critic (born 
1831); especially well known as the leading representative in 
England of the religion or philosophy called Positivism. 



ARNOLD 323 

aaFs personality, our maxim of ^^every man for himself.'^ 
Above all, the idea of perfection as a harmonious expansion 
of human nature is at variance with our want of flexibility, 
with our inaptitude for seeing more than one side of a thing, 
with our intense energetic absorption in the particular pursuit 
we happen to be following. So culture has a rough task ta 
achieve in this country. Its preachers have, and are likely 
long to have, a hard time of it, and they will much oftener 
be regarded, for a great while to come, as elegant or spurious 
Jeremiahs^ than as friends and benefactors. That, however, 
will not prevent their doing in the end good service if they 
persevere. And, meanwhile, the mode of action they have to 
pursue, and the sort of habits they must fight against, ought 
to be made quite clear for every one to see, who may be willing 
to look at the matter attentively and dispassionately. 

Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in 
machinery most absurdly disproportioned to the end which 
this machinery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve; but 
always in machinery, as if it had a value in and for itself. 
TVhat is freedom but machinery^ what is population but 
machinery'? what is coal but machinery'? what are railroads 
but machinery'? what is wealth but machinery'? what are even 
religious organizations but machinery'? Now almost every 
voice in England is accustomed to speak of these things as if 
they were precious ends in themselves, and therefore had some 
of the characters of perfection indisputably joined to them. I 
have before now noticed Mr. Roebuck's^ stock argument for 
proving the greatness and happiness of England as she is, and 

8. Jeremialis. Complaining prophets. Arnold was sometimes, 
called an "elegant Jeremiah" by his critics. 

9. Mr, Eoetouck. John Arthur Roebuck, a Member of Parlia- 
ment for ShefReld (died 1879). In his essay on "The Function, 
of Criticism at the Present Time," Arnold had quoted or para- 
phrased one of Roebuck's speeches as follows: "I look around 
me and ask what is the state of England? Is not property 
safe? Is not every man able to say what he likes? Can you not 
walk from one end of England to the other in perfect security? 
I ask you whether, the world over or in past history, there is 
anything like it? Nothing." 



324 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

for quite stopping the mouths of all gainsayers. Mr. Roebuck 
is never weary of reiterating this argument of his, so I do not 
know why I should be weary of noticing it. ^^May not every 
man in England say what he likes f' — Mr. Roebuck perpetu- 
ally asks; and that, he thinks, is quite sufficient, and when 
every man may say what he likes, our aspirations ought to be 
satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, which is the study of 
perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men say, when they 
may say what they ^ike, is worth sajdng, — has good in it, and 
more good than bad. In the same way the Times, replying to 
some foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behavior of 
the English abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every 
one should be free to do and to look just as he likes. But 
culture indefatigably tries, not to make what each raw person 
may like the rule by which he fashions himself, but to draw 
ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, 
and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that. 

And in the same way with respect to railroads and coal. 
Every one must have observed the strange language current 
during the late discussions as to the possible failure of our 
supplies of coal. Our coal, thousands of people were saying, 
is the real basis of our national greatness; if our coal runs 
short, there is an end of the greatness of England. But what 
is greatness? — culture makes us ask. Greatness is a spiritual 
condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and 
the outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite 
love, interest, and admiration. If England were swallowed 
up by the sea tomorrow, which of the two, a hundred years 
hence, would most excite the love, interest, and admiration of 
mankind, — ^would most, therefore, show the evidences of hav- 
ing possessed greatness, — the England of the last twenty years, 
or the England of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid spiritual 
effort, but when our coal, and our industrial operations depend- 
ing on coal, were very little developed *? Well, then, what an 
unsound habit of mind it must be which makes us talk of 



ARNOLD 325 

things like coal or iron as constituting the greatness of Eng- 
land, and how salutary a friend is culture, bent on seeing 
things as they are, and thus dissipating delusions of this kind 
and fixing standards of perfection that are real! 

Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for 
material advantage are directed, — the commonest of common- 
places tells us how men are always apt to regard wealth as 
a precious end in itself; and certainly they have never been 
so apt thus to regard it as they are in England at the present 
time. Never did people believe anything more firmly than 
nine Englishmen out of ten at the present day believe that our 
greatness and welfare are proved by our being so very rich. 
Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its 
spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but 
machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we 
regard wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and 
feel that is is so. If it were not for this purging effect 
wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the 
future as well as the present, would inevitably belong to the 
Philistines.^^ The people who believe most that our greatness 
and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most 
give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the 
very people whom we call Philistines. Culture says: ^^Con- 
sider these people, then, their. way of life, their habits, their 
manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them atten- 
tively; observe the literature they read, the things which give 
them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, 
the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would 
any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition 
that one was to become just like these people by having it*?'' 
And thus culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of the high- 
est possible value in stemming the common tide of men's 

10. tlie Philistines. Arnold's pet term for the non-idealist 
middle-class Eng-lish. In a subsequent passag'e he defines the 
Philistine as "the enemy of the children of light or servants of 
the idea." 



326 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

thoughts in a wealthy and industrial community, and which 
saves the future, as one may hope, from being vulgarized, 
even if it cannot save the present. 

Population, again, and bodily health and vigor, are things 
which are nowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, 
exaggerated way as in England. Both are really machinery; 
yet how many people all around us do we see rest in them and 
fail to look beyond them! Why, one has heard people, fresh 
from reading certain articles of the Times on the Registrar- 
General's returns of marriages and births in this country, who 
would talk of our large English families in quite a solemn 
strain, as if they had something in itself beautiful, elevating, 
and meritorious in them; as if the British Philistine would 
have only to present himself before the Great Judge with his 
twelve children, in order to be received among the sheep^^ as 
a matter of right! 

But bodily health and vigor, it may be said, are not to be 
classed with wealth and population as mere machinery; they 
have a more real and essential value. True; but only as they 
are more intimately connected with a perfect spiritual condi- 
tion than wealth or population are. The moment we disjoin 
them from the idea of a perfect spiritual condition and pursue 
them, as we do pursue them, for their own sake and as ends in 
themselves, our worship of them becomes as mere worship of 
machinery, as our worship of wealth or population, and as 
unintelligent and vulgarizing a worship as that is. Every one 
with anything like an adequate idea of human perfection has 
distinctly marked this subordination to higher and spiritual 
ends of the cultivation of bodily vigor and activity. "Bodily 
exercise pronteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all 
things,'' says the author of the Epistle to Timothy.^^ j^j^^ w^q 
utilitarian Franklin says just as explicitly : — "Eat and drink 
such an exact quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, 

11. among* tlie sHeep. See Matthew 25:32-83. 

12. Bodily exercise, etc. i Timothy 4:8. 



ARNOLD 327 

in reference to the services of the mind.^^'^^ But the point of 
view of culture, keeping the mark of human perfection simply 
and broadly in view, and not assigning to this perfection, as 
religion or utilitarianism assigns to it, a special and limited 
character, this point of view, I say, of culture is best given 
by these words of Epictetus:^- "It is a sign of d^vla /-' says 
he, — ^that is, of a nature not finely tempered, — ^^to give your- 
selves up to things which relate to the body; to make, for 
instance, a great fuss about exercise, a great fuss about eat- 
ing, a gTeat fuss about drinking, a great fuss about walking, 
a great fuss about riding. All these things ought to be done 
merely by the way : the formation of the spirit and character 
m^ust be our real concern/' This is admirable; and, indeed, 
the Greek word evcpvia^ a finely tempered nature, gives exactly 
the notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: 
a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters 
of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the 
two noblest of things," — as Swift, who of one of the two, at 
any rate, had himself all too little, most happily calls them 
in his Battle of tlie Books ^^^ — "the tv^o noblest of things, 
sweetness and light. ^^ The evipv-qs is the man who tends 
towards sweetness and light; the d4)V7}s ^ on the other hand, 
is our Philistine. The immense spiritual significance of the 
Greeks is due to their having been inspired mth this central 
and happy idea of the essential character of human perfection ; 
and Mr. Bright's misconception of culture, as a smattering of 
Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderful 

13. Eat and drink, etc. The first of the "Rules of Health and 
Long Life" in Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, Decem- 
ber, 1742. 

14. Epictetns. A Greek philosopher of the Stoic school, who 
taught at Rome in the first century a.d, 

15. Battle of t2ie Books. An allegory published by Swift in 
1704, on the quarrel between the extreme partisans of ancient 
and modern literature. Swift took the side of the ancients, whom 
he symbolized in the Bee, the moderns in the Spider. "Instead 
of dirt and poison/' say the bees, "we have rather chose to fill 
our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with 
the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." 



328 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

significance of the Greeks having aiTected the very maeliinery of 
our education, and is in itself a kind of homage to it. . . . 

The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness 
and light. He who works for sweetness and liglit, works to 
make reason and. the will of God prevail. He who works for 
machinery, he who w^orks for hatred, works only for confusion. 
Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred ; culture 
has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light. It 
has one even yet greater ! — the passion for making them 'pre- 
vail. It is not satisfied till we all come to a perfect man;^^ it 
knows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imper- 
fect until the raw and unkindled masses of humanity are 
touched with sweetness and light. If I have not shrunk from 
saying that we must work for sweetness and light, so neither 
have I shrunk from saying that we must have a broad basis, 
must have sweetness and light for as many as possible. Again 
and again I have insisted how those are the happy moments of 
humanity, how those are the marking epochs of a people's life, 
how those are the flowering times for literature and art and all 
the creative power of genius, when there is a national glow of 
life and thought, when the whole of society is in the fullest 
measure peimeated by thought, sensible to beauty, intelligent 
and alive. Only it must be real thought and real beauty; real 
sweetness and real light. Plenty of people will try to give the 
masses, as they call them, an intellectual food prepared and 
adapted in the way they think proper for the actual condition 
of the masses. The ordinary popular literature is an example 
of this way of working on the masses. Plenty of people will 
try to indoctrinate the masses with the set of ideas and judg- 
ments constituting the creed of their own profession or party. 
Our religious and political organizations give an example of 
this way of working on the masses. I condemn neither way: 
but culture works differently. It does not try to teach down 
to the level of inferior classes; it does not try to win them 

:! C. till vre all come, etc. See Ephesians 4:13, 



ARIS-OLD 329 

for this or that sect of its own, with ready-made judgments 
and watchwords. It seeks to do away with classes; to make 
the best that has been thought and known in the world current 
everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweet- 
ness and light, where they may use ideas, as it uses them itself, 
freely, — nourished, and not bound by them. 

This is the social idea] and the men of culture are the true 
apostles of equality. The great men of culture are those who 
have had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for cany- 
ing from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, 
the best ideas of their time; who have labored to divest knowl- 
edge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, pro- 
fessional, exclusive ; to humanize it, to make it efficient outside 
the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the 
best knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, 
therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a man was Abelard^^ 
in the Middle Ages, in spite of all his imperfections; and 
thence the boundless emotion and enthusiasm which Abelard 
excited. Such were Lessing and Herder^^ in Germany, at the 
end of the last century; and their services to Germany were 
in this way inestimably precious. Generations will pass, and 
literary monuments will accumulate, and works far more per- 
fect than the works of Lessing and Herder will be produced 
in Germany; and yet the names of these two men will fill a 
German with a reverence and enthusiasm such as the names 
of the most gifted masters will hardly awaken. And why? 
Because they humanized knowledge; because they broadened 
the basis of life and intelligence; because they worked power- 
fully to diffuse sweetness and light, to make reason and the 
will of God prevail. With Saint Augustine^^ they said: "Let 
us not leave thee alone to make in the secret of thy knowledge, 

17. Abelard. A French theolog^ian and professor (1079-1142). 

18. Lessing and Herder. German critics of the late eighteenth 
century. 

19. Saint Augmstine. A church father of the fourth and fifth 
centuries. The quotation is from his famous Confessions. 



330 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

as thou didst before the creation of the firmament, the 
division of light from darkness; let the children of thy spirit, 
placed in their firmament, make their light shine upon the 
earth, mark the di^dsion of night and day, and announce the 
revolution of the times; for the old order is passed, and the 
new arises; the night is spent, the day is come forth; and 
thou shalt crown the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt 
send forth laborers into thy harvest sown by other hands than 
theirs; when thou shalt send forth new laborers to new seed- 
times, whereof the harvest shall be not yet." 



^ 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

[Robert JLouis Stevenson was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 
1850, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh. While 
still in college he devoted much attention to writing, and some 
of his early essays were first written for the University Maga- 
zine. In 1876 and 1878 he went on camping trips in France and 
Belgium for the sake of his health, and his earliest books — 
An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey — were among the results. 
His first fame as a writer of fiction was won with Treasure Island, a 
story written primarily for boys. Always forced to seek climates 
favorable to his health, Stevenson lived successively in Switzer- 
land, France, America (spending some time in California, and 
some in the Adirondacks), and the South Seas; eventually (in 
1889) he settled at Samoa, where he died in 1894. Meantime he 
had published two or three volumes of essays and man 3^ more 
of stories, such as New Arabian Nights, The Black Arrow, and Kid- 
napped. Stevenson's personality was among the best beloved of 
his time, and is perpetuated attractively in his published letters 
and other more or less personal writings.] 



ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES^ 

It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, 
and we have much in our own power. Things looked at 
patiently from one side after another generally end by show- 
ing a side that is beautiful. A few months ago some words 
were said in the Portfolio as to an ^^austere regimen in 
scenery"; and such a discipline was then recommended as 

1. This essay was written in 1874, for a periodical called 
The Portfolio. It will be noticed that all three of Stevenson's 
essays here included were written when he was still a young 
man. They represent not only his personality in that period, but 
his interest in the art of style, which he studied with great 
care, not merely with a view to clearness and force but to 
beauty of imagery and sound akin to that of poetry (for exam- 
ple, see the sentence on page 338f. : "Two great tracts of motion- 
less blue air and peaceful sea looking on, unconcerned and apart, 
at the turmoil of the present moment and the memorials of the 
precarious past"). In particular, he studied the art of previous 
essayists, notably Hazlitt (on whom see his remarks in the fol- 
lowing essay). 

331 



332 ESSAYS— EXGLISII AND AMERICAN 

^^healthful and strengthening to the taste.'' That is the text; 
so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, 
it must be understood, is something more than a mere walk 
before breakfast to whet the appetite. For when we are put 
down in some unsightly neighborhood, and especially if we 
have come to be more or less dependent on what we see, we 
must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the 
ardor and patience of a botanist after a rare plant. Day 
by day we perfect ourselves in the art of seeing nature more 
favorably. We learn to live with her, as people learn to live 
with fretful or violent spouses: to dwell lovingly on what is 
good, and shut our eyes against all that is bleak or inhar- 
monious. We learn, also, to come to each place in the right 
spirit. The traveler, as Brantome^ quaintly tells us, "fait 
des discours en soi pour se soutenir en chemin"; and into 
these discourses he weaves something out of all that he sees 
and suffers by the way: they take their tone greatly from the 
varying character of the scene; a sharp ascent brings differ- 
ent thoughts from a level road; and the man's fancies grow 
lighter as he comes out of the wood into a clearing. Nor 
does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the 
thoughts affect the scenery. We see places through our 
humors as through differently colored glasses. We are our- 
selves a turn in the equation, a note of the chord, and make 
discord or harmony almost at will. There is no fear for the 
result, if we can but surrender ourselves sufficiently to the 
country that surrounds and follows us, so that we are ever 
thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable 
sort of story as we go. We become thus, in some sense, a 
center of beauty; we are provocative of beauty, much as a 
gentle and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and 
gentleness in others. And even where there is no harmony 
to be elicited by the quickest and most obedient of spirits, we 

2. Brantdme. An old French chronicler (died 1614). The 
sentence reads: "The traveler holds discourse within himself in 
order 'to bear up on his road." 



STEVENSON 333 

may still embellish a place with some attraction of romance. 
We may learn to go far afield for associations, and handle 
them lightly when we have found them. Sometimes an old 
print comes to our aid; I have seen many a spot lit up with 
picturesque imaginations, by a reminiscence of C allot, or 
Sadeler, or Paul BrilL^ Dick Turpin^ has been my lay figure 
for many an English lane. And I suppose the Trossachs^ 
would hardly be the Trossachs for tourists if a man of admir- 
able romantic instinct had not peopled it for them with 
harmonious figures, and brought them thither with minds 
rightly prepared for the impression. There is half the battle 
in this preparation. For instance: I have rarely been able 
to visit, is the proper spirit, the wild and inhospitable places 
of our own Highlands. I am happier where it is tame and 
fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. I understand 
that there are some phases of mental trouble that harmonize 
well with such surroundings, and that some persons, by the 
dispensing power of the imagination, can go back several 
centuries in spirit, and put themselves into sympathy with 
the hunted, houseless, unsociable way of life, that was in its 
place upon these savage hills. Now, when I am sad, I like 
nature to charm me out of my sadness, like David before 
Saul;^ and the thought of these past ages strikes nothing in 
me but an unpleasant pity ; so that I can never hit on the 
right humor for this sort of landscape, and lose much pleas- 
ure in consequence. Still, even here, if I were only let alone, 
and time enough were given, I should have all manner of 
pleasures, and take many clear and beautiful images away 
with me when I left. When we cannot think ourselves into 

S. Callct, etc. Well-known artists. Callot was a French 
painter and engraver of the early seventeenth century; Sadeler 
and Brill were Flemish artists of the same period. 

4. Dick Turpin. A famous highwayman who was executed in 
1739. 

5. Tile Trossaclis. A glen in the Scotch Highlands, famous 
as the scene of some of the events in Scott's Lady of the Lake. 

6. David lief ore SauL See / Samuel 16:23. 



334 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

sj^mpathy witli the great features of a country, we learn to 
ignore thoni; and put our head among the grass for flowers, 
or pore, for long times together, over the changeful current 
of a stream. W© come down to the sermon in stones,^ when 
we are shut out from any poem in the spread landscape. 
We begin tO' peep and botanize,^ we take an interest in birds 
and insects, we find many things beautiful in miniature. The 
reader will recollect the little summer scene in Wuthering 
Heights^ — the one warm scene, perhaps, in all that powerful, 
miserable novel — and the great feature that is made therein 
by grasses and flowers and a little sunshine: this is in the 
spirit of which I now speak. And, lastly, we can go indoors; 
interiors are sometimes as beautiful, often more picturesque, 
than the shows of the open air, and they have that quality of 
shelter of which I shall presently have more to say. 

With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to put 
forth the paradox that any place is good enough to live a 
life in, while it is only in a few, and those highly favored, 
that we can pass a few hours agreeably. For, if we only 
stay long enough, we become at home in the neighborhood. 
Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about uninteresting 
corners. We forget to some degree the superior loveliness 
of other places, and fall into a tolerant and sympathetic 
spirit which is its own reward and justification. Looking 
back the other day on some recollections of my own, I was 
astonished to find how much I owed to such a residence; six 
weeks in one unpleasant country-side had done more, it 
seemed, to quicken and educate my sensibilities than many 
years in places that jumped more nearly with my inclination. 

The country to which I refer was a level and treeless 
plateau, over which the winds cut like a whip. For miles 

7. sermon in stones. A Shakespearean phrase, from As You 
Like It, II, i. 

8. peep and botanize. A phrase of Wordsworth's, from "A 
Poet's Epitaph." 

9. Wuthering- Heigfhts. A novel by Emily Bronte (1847). 



STEVENSON 335 

on miles it was the same. A river, indeed, fell into the sea 
near the town where I resided; but the valley of the river 
was shallow and bald for as far up as ever I had the heart 
to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had 
no beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but 
little irregularity of surface, you saw your whole walk exposed 
to you from the beginning; there was nothing left to fancy, 
nothing to expect, nothing to see by the wayside, save here 
and there an unhomely-looking homestead, and here and there 
a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker ; and you were only accom- 
panied, as you went doggedly forward, by the gaunt telegraph- 
posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen sea-wind. 
To one who had learned to know their song in warm pleasant 
places by the Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the country, 
and make it still bleaker by suggested contrast. Even the 
waste places by the side of the road were not, as Hawthorne 
liked to put it, "taken back to Nature" by any decent cover- 
ing of vegetation. Wherever the land had the chance, it 
seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain tawny nudity of the 
South, bare sunburnt plains, colored like a lion, and hills 
clothed only in the blue transparent air; but this was of 
another description — this was the nakedness of the North; 
the earth seemed to know that it was naked, and was ashamed 
and cold. 

It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, 
this had passed into the speech of the inhabitants, and they 
saluted each other when they met with "Breezy, breezy,'' 
instead of the customary "Fine day'' of farther south. These 
continual winds were not like the harvest breeze, that just 
keeps an equable pressure against your face as you walk, 
and serves to set all the trees talking over your head, or 
bring round you the smell of the wet surface of the country 
after a shower. They were of the bitter, hard, persistent 
sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and makes 
the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit 



336 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

in proper time and place. It is pleasant to see them brandish 
great masses of shadow. And what a power they have over 
the color of the world ! How they ruffle the solid woodlands 
in their passage, and make them shudder and whiten like a 
single willow! There is nothing more vertiginous^^ than a 
wind like this among the woods, with all its sights and noises ; 
and the effect gets between some painters and their sober eye- 
sight, so that, even when the rest of their picture is calm, the 
foliage is colored like foliage in a gale. There was nothing, 
however, of this sort to be noticed in a country where there 
were no trees and hardly any shadows, save the passive shad- 
ows of clouds or those of rigid houses and walls. But the 
wind was nevertheless an occasion of pleasure; for nowhere 
could you taste more fully the pleasure of a sudden lull, or 
a place of opportune shelter. The reader knows what I mean ; 
he must remember how, when he has sat himself down behind 
a dyke on a hillside, he delighted to hear the wind hiss vainly 
through all the crannies at his back; how his body tingled all 
over with warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a 
sort of slow surprise, that the country was beautiful, the 
heather purple, and the far-away hills all marbled with sun 
and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful passage of The 
Prelude^ has used this as a figure for the feeling struck in 
us by the quiet by-streets of London after the uproar of the 
great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned the 
other way with as good effect: 

Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length, 
Escaped as from an enemy, we turn 
Abruptly into some sequestered nook. 
Still as a sheltered place when winds blow loud ! 

I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me 
of what must have been quite the most perfect instance of 
this pleasure of escape. He had gone up, one sunny, windy 

10. vertiginons. Dizzying 



STEVENSON 337 

morning, to the top of a great cathedral somewhere abroad; 

I think it was Cologne Cathedral, the great unfinished marvel^^ 
by the Rhine; and after a long while in dark stairways, he 
issued at last into the sunshine, on a platform high above 
the town. At that elevation it was quite still and warm; the 
gale was only in the lower strata of the air, and he had for- 
gotten it in the quiet interior of the church and during his 
long ascent; and so you may judge of his surprise when, 
resting his arms on the sunlit balustrade and looking over 
into the Place^^ far below him, he saw the good people hold- 
ing on their hats and leaning hard against the wind as they 
walked. There is something, to my fancy, quite perfect in 
this little experience of my fellow-traveler's. The ways of 
men seem always very trivial to us when we find ourselves 
alone on a church top, with the blue sky and a few tall pin- 
nacles, and see far below us the steep roofs and foreshortened 
buttresses, and the silent activity of the city streets; but how 
much more must they not have seemed so to him as he stood, 
not only above other men's business, but above other men's 
climate, in a golden zone like ApoUo's.^^ 

This was the sort of pleasure I found in the country of 
which I write. The pleasure was to be out of the wind, and 
to keep it in memory all the time, and hug oneself upon the 
shelter. And it was only by the sea that any such sheltered 
places were to be found. Between the black worm-eaten 
headlands there are little bights and havens, well screened 
from the wind and the commotion of the external sea, where 
the sand and weeds look up into the gazer's face from a 
depth of tranquil water, and the sea-birds, screaming and 
flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb the silence 
and the sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on 
my memory beyond all others. On a rock by the water's edge, 

11. nnfinished marvel. The Cologrie Cathedral was begun in. 
1248 and completed in 1880. 

12. Place. Open square. 

13. Apollo's. The sun-god's. 



338 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

old fighting men of the Norse breed had planted a double 
castle; the two stood wall to wall like semi-detached villas;^* 
and yet feud had run so high between their owners that one, 
from out of a window, shot the other as he stood in his own 
doorway. There is something in the juxtaposition of these 
two enemies full of tragic irony. It is grim to think of 
bearded men and bitter women taking hateful counsel together 
about the two hall-fires at night, when the sea boomed against 
the foundations and the wild winter w^ind was loose over the 
battlements. And in the study we may reconstruct for ourselves 
some pale figure of what life then was. Not so when we are 
there ; when we are there such thoughts come to us only to inten- 
sify a contrary impression, and association is turned against 
itself. I remember walking thither three afternoons in succes- 
sion, my eyes weary with being set against the wind, and how, 
dropping suddenly over the edge of the down, I found myself 
in a new world of warmth and shelter. The wind, from which 
I had escaped, "as from an enemy," was seemingly quite 
local. It carried no clouds with it, and came from such a 
quarter that it did not trouble the sea within view. The two 
castles, black and ruinous as the rocks about them, were still 
distinguishable from these by something more insecure and 
fantastic in the outline, something that the last storm had left 
imminent and the next would demolish entirely. It would be 
difficult to render in words the sense of peace that took pos- 
session of me on these three afternoons. It was helped out, 
as I have said, by the contrast. The shore was battered and 
bemauled by previous tempests; I had the memory at heart 
of the insane strife of the pigmies who had erected these two 
castles and lived in them in mutual distrust and enmity, and 
knew I had only to put my head out of this little cup of 
shelter to find the hard wind blowing in my eyes; and yet 
there were the two great tracts of motionless blue air and 

14. semi-detaclied villas. The usual term in Great Britain for 
what Americans call "double houses." 



STEVENSON 33^ 

peaceful sea looking on, unconcerned and apart, at the turmoil 
of the present moment and the memorials of the precarious 
past. There is ever something transitory and fretful in the 
impression of a high wind under a cloudless sky; it seems to 
have no root in the constitution of things; it must speedily 
begin to faint and wither away like a cut flower. And on 
those days the thought of the wind and the thought of human 
life came very near together in my mind. Our noisy years 
did indeed seem moments in the being of the eternal silence :^^ 
and the wind, in the face of that great field of stationary blue, 
was as the wind of a butterfly's wing. The placidity of the 
sea was a thing likewise to be remembered. Shelley speaks 
of the sea as ^^hungering for calm,"^® and in this place one 
learned to understand the phrase. Looking down into these 
green waters from the broken edge of the rock, or swimming 
leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed to me that they were 
enjoying their own tranquillity; and when now and again it 
was disturbed by a wind ripple on the surface, or the quick 
black passage of a fish far below, they settled back again 
(one could fancy) with relief. 

On shore too, in the little nook of shelter, everything was 
go subdued and still that the least particular struck in me a 
pleasurable surprise. The desultory crackling of the whin- 
pods^ '^ in the afternoon sun usurped the ear. The hot, sweet 
breath of the bank, that had been saturated all day long with 
sunshine, and now exhaled it into my face, was like the breath 
of a fellow-creature. I remember that I was haunted by two 
lines of French verse; in some dumb way they seemed to fit 
my surroundings and give expression to the contentment that 
was in me, and I kept repeating to myself — 

15. Our noisy years, etc. From Wordsworth's ode on "Intima- 
tions of Immortality"; not marked as a quotation because of its 
familiarity. 

16. "Imng'eriiig' for calm-" From Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, 
Act III. 

17. wliin-pods. The pods of gorse or furze. 



340 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Mon coeur est un luth suspendu, 
Sit6t qu'on le touche, il resonne.is 

I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; 
and for that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, 
they may serve to complete the impression in the mind of the 
reader, as they were certainly a part of it for me. 

And this happened to me in the place of all others where I 
liked least to stay. When I think of it I grow ashamed of my 
o^vn ingratitude. "Out of the strong came forth sweetness."^^ 
There, in the bleak and gusty North, I received, perhaps, my 
strongest impression of peace. I saw the sea to be great and 
calm; and the earth, in that little corner, was all alive and 
friendly to me. So, wherever a man is, he will find something 
to please and pacify him; in the town he will meet pleasant 
faces of men and women, and see beautiful flowers at a win- 
dow, or hear a cage-bird singing at the corner of the gloomiest 
street; and for the country, there is no country without some 
amenity;— let him only look for it in the right spirit, and he 
will surely find. 

WALKING TOURSi 
It must not be imagined that a walking tour, as some would 
have us fancy, is merely a better or worse way of seeing the 
country. There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as 
good; and none more vivid,' in spite of canting dilettantes, 
than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking tour 
is quite accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood does 
not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly 
humors — of the hope and spirit with which the march begins 
at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the 
evening's rest. He cannot tell whether he puts his knapsack 



18. "Mon coenr," etc. "My heart is a lute hung in the air; 
the moment any one touches it, it sounds." 

19. "Out of tlie strongr," etc. See Judges 14:14. 

1. This essay was published in the Comhill Magazine in 1876, ' 



STEVENSOIS" 341 

on, or takes it off, with more delight. The excitement of the 
departure puts him in key for that of the arrival. Whatever 
he does is not only a reward in itself, but will be further 
rewarded in the sequel; and so pleasure leads on to pleasure 
in an endless chain. It is this that so few can understand; 
they will either be always lounging or always at five miles an 
hour; they do not play off the one against the other, prepare 
all day for the evening, and all evening for the next day. 
And, above all, it is here that your overwalker fails of com- 
prehension. His heart rises against those who drink their 
cura^oa^ in liqueur glasses, when he himself can swill it in a 
broT\Ti john.^ He will not believe that to walk this uncon- 
scionable distance is merely to stupefy and brutalize himself, 
and come to his inn, at night, with a sort of frost on his five 
wits, and a starless night of darkness in his spirit. Not for 
him the mild luminous evening of the temperate walker! He 
has nothing left of man but a physical need for bedtime and 
a double night-cap; and even his pipe, if he be a smoker, 
will be savorless and disenchanted. It is the fate of such an 
one to take twice as much trouble as is needed to obtain 
happiness, and miss the happiness in the end; he is the 
man of the proverb, in short, who goes further and fares 
worse. 

Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone 
upon alone. If you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is 
no longer a walking tour in anything but name; it is some- 
thing else and more in the nature of a picnic. A walking 
tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the 
essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, 
and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and 
because you must have your own pace, and neither trot along- 
side a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl. And 



2. cura^oa. More properly curagao; a South American cor- 
Lial, flavored with bitter orange. 

3. "brown jolm. Earthenware demijohn. 



342 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

then you must be open to all impressions and let your 
thoughts take color from what you see. You should be as a 
pipe for any wind to play upon. "I cannot see the wit/' 
says Hazlitt/ "of walking and talking at the same time. 
When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the 
country/' — which is the gist of all that can be said upon the 
matter. There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, 
to jar on the meditative silence of the morning. And so long 
as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that 
fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, 
that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the brain, 
and ends in a peace that passes comprehension. 

During the first day or so of any tour there are moments 
of bitterness, when the traveler feels more than coldly towards 
his knapsack, when he is half in a mind to throw it bodily 
over the hedge and, like Christian^ on a similar occasion, 
"give three leaps and go on singing.'' And yet it soon 
acquires a property of easiness. It becomes magnetic; the 
spirit of the journey enters into it. And no sooner have you 
passed the strap over your shoulder than the lees of sleep 
are cleared from you, you pull yourself together with a shake, 
and fall at once into your stride. And surely, of all possible 
moods, this, in which a man takes the road, is the best. Of 
course, if he will keep thinking of his anxieties, if he will 
open the merchant Abudah's chest^ and walk arm-in-arm 
with the hag — why, wherever he is, and whether he walk fast 
or slow, the chances are that he will not be happy. And so 
much the more shame to himself I There are perhaps thirty 
men setting forth at that same hour, and I would lay a large 
wager there is not another dull face among the thirty. It 
would be a fine thing to follow, in a coat of darkness, one 

' 4. "I cannot see," etc. See page 166. 

5. lilce Ciiristian. In The Pilgrim's Progress; the scene is that 
in which Christian loses his burden at the Cross. 

6. Abudah's cliest. Tn a story from Tales of the Genii, by James 
Ridley, in which a man is represented as hag-ridden in his 
dreams until he learns virtue. 



STEVEXSON 343 

after another of these wayfarers, some summer morning, 
for the first few miles upon the road. This one, who walks 
fast, with a keen look in his eyes, is all eoncentraied in his 
own mind; he is up at his loom, weaving and weaving, to set 
the landscape to words. This one peers about, as he goes, 
among the grasses ; he waits by the canal to watch the dragon- 
flies; he leans on the gate of the pasture, and cannot look 
enough upon the complacent kine. And here comes another, 
talking, laughing, and gesticulating to himself. His face 
changes from time to time, as indignation flashes from his 
eyes or anger clouds his forehead. He is composing articles, 
delivering orations, and conducting the most impassioned 
interviews, by the way. A little farther on, and it is as like as 
not he will begin to sing. And well for him, supposing him 
to be no great master in that art, if he stumble across no stolid 
peasant at a comer; for on such an occasion, I scarcely know 
which is the more troubled, or whether it is worse to suffer 
the confusion of your troubadour,'' or the unfeigned alarm 
of your clown. A sedentary population, accustomed, besides, 
to the strange mechanical bearing of the common tramp, can 
in no wise explain to itself the gaiety of these passers-by. I 
knew one man who was airested as a runaway lunatic, because, 
although a full-grown person with a red beard, he skipped as 
he went like a child. And you would be astonished if I were 
to tell you all the grave and learned heads who have confessed 
to me that, when on walking tours, they sang — and sang very 
ill — and had a pair of red ears when, as described above, the 
inauspicious peasant plumped into their arms from around 
a corner. And here, lest you should think I am exaggerating, 
is Hazlitt's own confession, from his essay On Going a Journey, 
which is so good that there should be a tax levied on all who 
have not read it : 

^'Give me the blue sky over my head,'' says he, "and the 

7. troubadour. Public singer. Clown is the same as peasant, 
countryman. 



344 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a 
three hours^ march to dinner — and then to thinking! It is 
hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I 
laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.'' 

Bravo ! After that adventure of my friend with the police- 
man, you would not have cared, would you, to publish that 
in the first person? But we have no bravery nowadays, and, 
even in books, must pretend to be as dull and foolish as our 
neighbors. It was not so with Hazlitt. And notice how 
learned he is (as, indeed, throughout the essay) in the theory 
of walking tours. He is none of your athletic men in purple 
stockings, who walk their fifty miles a day : three hours' march 
is his ideal. And then he must have a winding road, the 
epicure ! 

Yet there is one thing I object to in these words of his, 
one thing in the great master's practice that seems to me not 
wholly wise. I do not approve of that leaping and running. 
Both of these hurry the respiration; they both shake up the 
brain out of its glorious open-air confusion; and they both 
break the pace. Uneven walking is not so agreeable to the 
body, and it distracts and irritates the mind. Whereas, when 
once you have fallen into an equable stride, it requires no 
conscious thought from you to keep it up, and yet it prevents 
you from thinking earnestly of anything else. Like knitting, 
like the work of a copying clerk, it gradually neutralizes and 
sets to sleep the serious activity of the mind. We can think 
of this or that, lightly and laughingly, as a child thinks, or 
as we think in a morning doze; we can make puns or puzzle 
out acrostics, and trifle in a thousand ways with words and 
rhymes; but when it comes to honest work, when we come to 
gather ourselves together for an effort, we may sound the 
trumpet as loud and long as we please; the great barons of 
the mind will not rally to the standard, but sit, each one, at 
home, warming his hands over his own fire and brooding on 
his own private thought! 



STEVENSON 345 

In the course of a day^s walk, you see, there is much vari- 
ance in the mood. From the exhilaration of the start to the 
happy phlegm of the arrival, the change is certainly great. 
As the day goes on, the traveler moves from the one extreme 
towards the other. He becomes more and more incorporated 
with the material landscape, and the open-air drunkenness 
grows upon him with great strides, until he posts along the 
road, and sees everything about him, as in a cheerful dream. 
The first is certainly brighter, but the second stage is the more 
peaceful. A man does not make so many articles towards the 
end, nor does he laugh aloud; but the purely animal pleasures, 
the sense of physical well-being, the delight of every inhala- 
tion, of every time the muscles tighten down the thigh, console 
him for the absence of the others, and bring him to his destina- 
tion still content. 

Nor must I forget to say a word on bivouacs. You come 
to a milestone on a hill, or some place where deep ways meet 
under trees; and off goes the knapsack, and down you sit to 
smoke a pipe in the shade. You sink into yourself, and the 
birds come round and look at you; and your smoke dissipates 
upon the afternoon under the blue dome of heaven; and the 
sun lies warm upon your feet, and the cool air visits your 
neck and turns aside your open shirt. If you are not happy, 
you must have an evil conscience. You may dally as long as 
you like by the roadside. It is almost as if the millennium 
were arrived, when we shall throw our clocks and watches 
over the housetop, and remember time and seasons no more. 
Not to keep hours for a lifetime is, I was going to say, to 
live forever. You have no idea, unless you have tried it, how 
endlessly long is a summer's day, that you measure out only 
by hunger, and bring to an end only when you are drowsy. 
I know a village where there are hardly any clocks, where no 
one knows more of the days of the week than by a sort of 
instinct for the fete on Sundays, and where only one person 
can tell you the day of the month, and she is generally wrong; 



346 • ESSAYS— ENGLISH ANT> AMERICAN 

and if people were aware how slow Time journeyed in that 
village, and what armfuls of spare hours he gives, over and 
above the bargain, to its wise inhabitants, I believe there 
would be a stampede out of London, Liverpool, Paris, and a 
variety of large towns, where the clocks lose their heads, and 
shake the hours out each one faster than the other, as though 
they were all in a wager. And all these foolish pilgrims would 
each bring his own misery with him, in a watch-pocket! It 
is to be noticed, there were no clocks and no watches in the 
much-vaunted days before the flood. It follows, of course, 
there were no appointments, and punctuality was not yet 
thought upon. ^Though ye take from a covetous man all his 
treasure,'' says Milton, ^^he has yet one jewel left; ye cannot 
deprive him of his covetousness."^ And so I would say of a 
modern man of business, you may do what you will for him, 
put him in Eden, give him the elixir of life — he has still 
a flaw at heart, he still has his business habits. Now, there 
is no time when business habits are more mitigated than on 
a walking tour. And so during these halts, as I say, you will 
feel almost free. 

But it is at night, and after dinner, that the best hour 
comes. There are no such pipes to be smoked as those that 
follow a good day's march; the flavor of the tobacco is a 
thing to be remembered, it is so dry and aromatic, so full 
and fine. If you wind up the evening with grog, you will ovra 
there was never such grog; at every sip a jocund tranquillity 
spreads about your limbs, and sits easily in your heart. If 
you read a book — and you never do so save by fits and starts 
— ^you find the language strangely racy and harmonious; 
words take a new meaning; single sentences possess the ear 
for half an hour together; and the writer endears himself 
to you, at every page, by the nicest coincidence of sentiment. 
It seems as if it were a book you had written yourself in 

g ('Th.OTig'li ye take," etc. From the Areopagitica, Milton's tract 
on the freedom of the press. 



STEVENSON 347 

a dream. To all we have read on such occasions we look back 
with special favor. ^^It was on the 10th of April, 1798," 
says Hazlitt, with amorous precision, "that I sat down to a 
volume of the New Heloise^ at the Inn at Llangollen, over a 
bottle of sherr^^ and a cold chickenc" I should wish to quote 
more, for though we are mighty fine fellows nowadays, we 
cannot write like Hazlitt, And, talking of that, a volume of 
Hazlitt's essays would be a capital pocket-book on such a 
journey; so would a volume of Heine's songs; and for Tristram 
Shandy^ 1 can pledge a fair experience. 

If the evening be fine and warm, there is nothing better in 
life than to lounge before the inn door in the sunset, or lean 
over the parapet of the bridge, to watch the weeds and the 
quick fishes. It is then, if ever, that you taste Joviality^^ to 
the full significance of that audacious word. Your muscles 
are so agreeably slack, you feel so clean and so strong and so 
idle, that whether you move or sit still, whatever you do is 
done with pride and a kingly sort of pleasure. You fall in 
talk with any one, wise or foolish, drunk or sober. And it 
seems as if a hot walk purged you, more than of anything 
else, of all narrowness and pride, and left curiosity to play its 
part freely, as in a child or a man of science. You lay aside 
all your own hobbies, to watch provincial humors develop them- 
selves before you, now as a laughable farce, and now grave 
and beautiful like an old tale. 

Or perhaps you are left to your own company for the 

night, and surly weather imprisons you by the fire. You may 

remember how Bums,^^ numbering past pleasures, dwells upon 

the hours when he has been "happy thinking." It is a phrase 

that may well perplex a poor modern, girt about on every side 

9. Tristram Sliandy. A rambling- novel by Sterne, published 
in 1759-67. 

10. Joviality. The literal meaning is Jove-likeness. 

11. Bums. In the song running: 

I hae been blithe wi' comrades dear; 

I hae been merry drinking; 

I hae been joyfu' g-ath'rin' g-ear; 

I hae been happy thinking. 



348 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

by clocks and chimes, and haunted, even at night, by flaming 
dial-plates. For we are all so busy, and have so many far- 
off projects to realize, and castles in the fire to turn into solid, 
habitable mansions on a gravel soil, that we can find no time 
for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the 
Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all 
night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world 
for most of us, when we can pass the hours without discon- 
tent, and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to be 
doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice 
audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we 
forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts — 
namely, to live. We fall in love, we drink hard, we run to 
and fro upon the earth like frightened sheep. And now you 
are to ask yourself if, when all is done, you would not have 
been better to sit by the fire at home, and be happy thinking. 
To sit still and contemplate, — to remember the faces of 
women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of 
men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sym- 
pathy, and yet content to remain where and what you are — 
is not this to know both wisdom and virtue, and to dwell with 
happiness? After all, it is not they who carry flags, but 
they who look upon it from a private chamber, who have the 
fun of the procession. And once you are at that, you are in 
the very humor of all social heresy. It is no time for shuflling, 
or for big, empty words. If you ask yourself what you mean 
by fame, riches or learning, the answer is far to seek; and 
you go back into that kingdom of light imaginations, which 
seem so vain in the eyes of Philistines^^ perspiring after 
wealth, and so momentous to those who are stricken with the 
disproportions of the world, and, in the face of the gigantic 
stars, cannot stop to split differences between two degrees of 
the infinitesimally small, such as a tobacco pipe or the Roman 
Empire, a million of money or a fiddlestick's end. 

12. Philistines. See note on page 325. 



STEVENSON 349 

You lean from the window, your last pipe reeking whitely 
into the darkness, your body full of delicious pains, your mind 
enthroned in the seventh circle of content; when suddenly the 
mood changes, the weather-cock goes about, and you ask 
yourself one question more: whether, for the interval, you 
have been the wisest philosopher or the most egregious of 
donkeys? Human experience is not yet able to reply; but 
at least you have had a fine moment, and looked down upon all 
the kingdoms of the earth. And whether it was wise or fool- 
ish, tomorrow's travel will carry you, body and mind, into 
some different parish of the infinite. 



^S TRIPLEX! 

The changes v^rought by death are in themselves so sharp 
and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their consequences, 
that the thing stands alone in man's experience and has no 
parallel upon earth. It outdoes all other accidents because it 
is the last of them. Sometimes it leaps suddenly upon its 
victims, like a Thug; sometimes it lays a regular siege, and 
creeps upon their citadel during a score of years. And when 
the business is done, there is sore havoc made in other people's 
lives, and a pin knocked out by which many subsidiary friend- 
ships hung together. There are empty chairs, solitary walks, 
and single beds at night. Again, in taking away our friends, 
death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a 
mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable residue, which must 
be hurriedly concealed. Hence a whole chapter of sights and 
customs striking to the mind, from the pyramids of Egypt 



1. This essay was published in the Cornhill Magazine in 1878. 
The title means "Triple Bronze," and is taken from an ode of 
Horace's, running": "He was armed with oak and triple bronze 
who first entrusted a frail bark to the fierce sea." The conclusion 
of the essay is not only regarded as one of the finest pieces of 
Stevenson's prose, but is especially valued as reflecting his own 
courageous character, — cheerful and persistent in labor through- 
out a life greatly handicapped by ill health. 



350 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

to the gibbets and dule trees^ of medieval Europe. The poor- 
est persons have a bit of pageant going towards the tomb; 
memorial stones are set up over the least memorable; and, in 
order to preserve som.e show of respect for what remains of 
our old loves and friendships, we must accompany it with 
much grimly ludicrous ceremonial, and the hired undertaker 
parades before the door. All this, and much more of the 
same sort, accompanied by the eloquence of poets, has gone 
a great way to put humanity in error; nay, in many philos- 
ophies the error has been embodied and laid down with every 
circumstance of logic, although in real life the bustle and 
swiftness, in leaving people little time to think, have not left 
them time enough to go dangerously wrong in practice. 

As a matter of fact, although few things are spoken of 
with more fearful whisperings than this prospect of death, 
few have less influence on conduct under healthy circum- 
stances. We have all heard of cities of South America built 
upon the side of fiery mountains, and how, even in this tre- 
mendous neighborhood, the inhabitants are not a jot more 
impressed by the solemnity of mortal conditions than if they 
were delving gardens in the greenest corner of England. 
There are serenades and suppers, and much gallantry among 
the myrtles overhead; and meanwhile the foundation shudders 
underfoot, the bowels of the mountain growl, and at any 
moment living ruin may leap sky-high into the moonlight, and 
tumble man and his merry-making in the dust. In the eyes 
of very young people, and verj^ dull old ones, there is some- 
thing indescribably reckless and desperate in such a picture. 
It seems not credible that respectable married people, with 
umbrellas, should find appetite for a bit of supper within 
quite a long distance of a fiery mountain ; ordinary life begins 
to smell of high-handed debauch when it is carried on so close 
to a catastrophe; and even cheese and salad, it seems, could 

2. dule trees. Mourning- trees; that is, trees especially aswo- 
ci3.ted with lamentation for public calamities. 



STEVENSON 351 

hardly be relished in such circumstances without something 
like a defiance of the Creator. It should be a place for 
nobody but hermits dwelling in prayer and maceration,^ or 
mere born-devils drowning care in a perpetual carouse. 

And yet, when one comes to think upon it calmly, the situ- 
ation of these South American citizens forms only a very pale 
figure for the state of ordinary mankind. This world itself^ 
traveling blindly and swiftly in overcrowded space, among a 
million other worlds traveling blindly and swiftly in con- 
trary directions, may very well come by a knock that would 
set it into explosion like a penny squib. And what, patholog- 
ically looked at, is the human body, with all its organs, but 
a mere bagful of petards'? The least of these is as dangerous 
to the whole economy as the ship's powder-magazine to the 
ship; and with every breath we breathe, and every meal we 
eat, we are putting one more of them in peril. If we clung 
as devotedly as some .philosophers pretend we do to the 
abstract idea of life, or were half as frightened as they make 
out we are for the subversive accident that ends it all, the 
trumpets might sound by the hour and no one would follow 
them into battle — the blue-peter^ might fly at the truck, but 
who would climb into a sea-going ship? Think (if these 
philosophers were right) with what a preparation of spirit we 
should aifront the daily peril of the dinner-table — a deadlier 
spot than any battle-field in history, where the far greater 
proportion of our ancestors have miserably left their bones! 
What woman would ever be lured into marriage, so much 
more dangerous than the wildest sea? And what would it 
be to grow old? For, after a certain distance, every st^p we 
, take in life we find the ice growing thinner below our feet, 
and all around us and behind us we see our contemporaries 
going through. By the time a man gets well into the seventies, 

3. maceration. Self-denial resulting- in loss of flesh. 

4. blue-peter . . . truck. The blue-peter is a flag displayed 
to indicate that a vessel is ready to sail; the truck is the mast- 
head. 



352 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

his continued existence is a mere miracle; and when he lays 
his old bones in bed for the night, there is an overwhelming 
probability that he will never see the day. Do the old men 
mind it, as a matter of fact? Why, no. They were never 
merrier; they have their grog at night, and tell the raciest 
stories; they hear of the death of people about their own age, 
or even younger, not as if it was a grisly warning, but with a 
simple childlike pleasure at having outlived some one else; 
and when a draught might puff them out like a guttering 
candle, or a bit of a stumble shatter them like so much glass, 
their old hearts keep sound and unaffrighted, and they go on, 
bubbling with laughter, through years of man's age compared 
to which the valley at Balaklava^ was as safe and peaceful 
as a village cricket-green on Sunday. It may fairly be ques- 
tioned (if we look at the peril only) whether it was a much 
more daring feat for Curtius^ to plunge into the gulf than 
for any old gentleman of ninety to doff his clothes and clamber 
into bed. 

Indeed, it is a memorable subject for consideration, with 
what unconcern and gaiety mankind pricks on along the Valley 
of the Shadow of Death. The whole way is one wilderness of 
snares; and the end of it, for those who fear the last pinch, 
is irrevocable ruin. And yet we go spinning through it all, 
like a party for the Derby."^ Perhaps the reader remembers 
one of the humorous devices of the deified Caligula:^ how he 
encouraged a vast concourse of holiday-makers on to his bridge 
over Baiae bay, and, when they were in the height of their 
enjoyment, turned loose the Pretorian guards among the com- 
pany and had them tossed into the sea. This is no bad minia- 

5. Balaklava. The scene of "the Charg^e of the Light Brigade" 
in the Crimean War. 

6. Curtius. A Roman who, according to legend, bravely leaped 
into a chasm which had been formed by an earthquake, because 
the soothsayers had intimated that only in some such way 
could it be closed. 

7. tlie DerTjy. The greatest of the English race-meets. 

8. CaligTila. Emperor of Rome 37-41 a.d., who had himself 
worshipped as a god. 



STEVENSON 353 

ture of the dealings of nature with the transitory race of 
man. Only, what a chequered picnic we have of it, even 
while it lasts! and into what great waters, not to be crossed 
by any swimmer, God's pale Pretorian throws us over in the 
end ! 

We live the time that a match flickers ; we pop the cork of a 
ginger-beer bottle, and the earthquake swallows us on the 
instant. Is it not odd, is it not incongruous, is it not in the 
highest sense of human speech, incredible, that we should 
think so highly of the ginger-beer and regard so little the 
devouring earthquake? "The love of Life" and "the fear of 
Death'' are two famous phrases that grow harder to under- 
stand the more we think about them. It is a well-known fact 
that an immense proportion of boat accidents would never 
happen if people held the sheet in their hands instead of 
making it fast; and yet, unless it be some martinet of a pro- 
fessional mariner, or some landsman with shattered nerves, 
every one of God's creatures makes it fast. A strange instance 
of man's unconcern and brazen boldness in the face of death ! 

We confound ourselves with metaphysical phrases, which 
we import into daily talk with noble inappropriateness. We 
have no idea of what death is, apart from its circumstances 
and some of its consequences to others; and although we have 
some experience of living, there is not a man on earth who 
has flown so high into abstraction as to have any practical 
guess at the meaning of the word "life." All literature, from 
Job and Omar KJiayyam^ to Thomas Carlyle or Walt Whit- 
man, is but an attempt to look upon the human state with 
such largeness of view as shall enable us to rise from the con- 
sideration of living to the Definition of Life. And our sages 
give us about the best satisfaction in their power when they 
say that it is a vapor, or a show, or made out of the same 
stuff with dreams. Philosophy, in its more rigid sense, has 

9. Omar Khayyam. A Persian poet of the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries, whose "Rubaiyat" is well known through the 
translation of Edward Fitzgerald. 



354 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

been at the same work for ages; and after a myriad bald 
heads have wagged over the problem, and piles of words 
have been heaped one upon another into dry and cloudy vol- 
umes without end, philosophy has the honor of laying before 
us, with modest pride, her contribution towards the subject: 
that life is a Permanent Possibility of Sensation. Truly a fine 
result! A man may very well love beef, or hunting, or a 
woman; but surely, surely, not a Permanent Possibility of 
Sensation ! He may be afraid of a precipice, or a dentist, or 
a large enemy with a club, or even an undertaker's man; but 
not, certainly, of abstract death. We may trick with the 
word "life" in its dozen senses until we are weary of tricking; 
we may argue in terms of all the philosophies on earth; but 
one fact remains true throughout — that we do not love life, 
in the sense that we are greatly preoccupied about its conser- 
vation ; that we do not, properly speaking, love life at all, but 
living. Into the views of the least careful there will enter 
some degree of providence ; no man's eyes are fixed entirely on 
the passing hour; but although we have some anticipation of 
good health, good weather, wine, active employment, love, and 
self -approval, the sum of these anticipations does not amount 
to anything like a general view of life's possibilities and issues ; 
nor are those who cherish them most vividly at all the most 
scrupulous of their personal safety. To be deeply interested 
in the accidents of our existence, to enjoy keenly the mixed 
texture of human experience, rather leads a man to disregard 
precautions and risk his neck against a straw. For surely the 
love of living is stronger in an Alpine climber roping over a 
peril, or a hunter riding merrily at a stiff fence, than in a 
creature who lives upon a diet and walks a measured distance 
in the interest of his constitution. 

There is a great deal of very vile nonsense talked upon both 
sides of the matter; tearing divines reducing life to the dimen- 
sions of a mere funeral procession, so short as to be hardly 
decent; and melancholy unbelievers yearning for the tomb as 



STEVEInSON 355 

if it were a world too far away. Both sides must feel a little 
ashamed of their performances nov/ and again, when they 
draw in their chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and a bottle 
of wine is an answer to most standard works upon the question. 
When a man's heart warms to his viands, he forgets a great 
deal of sophistry, and soars into a rosy zone of contemplation. 
Death may be knocking at the door, like the Commander's 
statue ;^^ we have something else in hand, thank God, and let 
him knock. Passing bells are ringing the world over. All 
the world over, and every hour, some one is parting company 
with all his aches and ecstasies. For us also the trap is laid. 
But we are so fond of life that we have no leisure to entertain 
the terror of death. It is a honeymoon with us all through^ 
and none of the longest. Small blame to us if we give our 
whole hearts to this glowing bride of ours — tO' the appetites, 
to honor, to the hungry curiosity of the mind, to the pleasure 
of the eyes in nature, and the pride of our own nimble bodies. 
We all of us appreciate the sensations; but as for caring 
about the Permanence of the Possibility, a man's head is gen- 
erally very bald, and his senses very dull, before he comes 
to that. Whether we regard life as a lane leading to a dead 
wall — a mere bag's end,^^ as the French say — or whether we 
think of it as a vestibule or gymnasium, where we wait our 
turn and prepare our faculties for some more noble destiny; 
whether we thunder in a pulpit, or pule in little atheistic 
poetry-books, about its vanity and brevity; whether we look 
justly for years of health and vigor, or are about to mount 
into a Bath-chair^^ as a step towards the hearse; in each 
and all of these views and situations there is but one con- 
ic, the Commander's statue. In the legend of Don Juan, a 
partially historic villain of the fourteenth century. He had 
killed the Commander; later, when he had jeeringly insulted 
the statue of the murdered man, it was said to have descended 
from the pedestal and dragged him to destruction. 

11. 'bag*'s end. Ftench cul de sac, a short street with no outlet 
at one end. 

12. Bath-cliair. Invalid's chair, so named from its use at 
Bath, the watering-place. 



356 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

elusion possible — that a man should stop his ears against 
paralyzing terror, and run the race that is set before him with 
a single mind. No one surely could have recoiled with more 
heartache and terror from the thought of death than our 
respected lexicogTapher;^^ and yet we know how little it 
affected his conduct, how wisely and boldly he walked, and in 
what a fresh and lively vein he spoke of life. Already an 
old man, he ventured on his Highland tour; and his heart, 
bound with triple brass, did not recoil before twenty-seven 
indiwdual cups of tea. As courage and intelligence are the two 
qualities best worth a good man's cultivation, so it is the first 
part of intelligence to recognize our precarious estate in life, 
and the first part of courage to be not at all abashed before 
the fact. A frank and somewhat headlong carriage, not look- 
ing too anxiously before, not dallying in maudlin regret over 
the past, stamps the man who is well armored for this world. 
And not only well armored for himself, but a good friend 
and a good citizen to boot. We do not go to cowards for 
tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man 
who has least fear for his own carcase has most time to con- 
sider others. That eminent chemist who took his walks abroad 
in tin shoes, and subsisted wholly upon tepid milk, had all 
his work cut out for him in considerate dealings with his own 
digestion. So soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the 
brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a 
paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink 
spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlors with a regulated 
temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of tin 
shoes and tepid milk. The care of one important body or soul 
becomes so engrossing that all the noises of the outer world 
begin to come thin and faint into the parlor with the regulated 
temperature, and the tin shoes go equably forward over blood 
and rain. To be otherwise is to ossify; and the scruple- 
monger ends by standing stock still. Now the man who has 

13. onr respected lezicogrraplier. Dr. Samuel Johnson. 



STEVENSON 357 

his heart on his sleeve, and a good whirling weathercock of 
a brain, who reckons his life as a thing to be dashingly used 
and cheerfully hazarded, makes a very different acquaintance 
of the world, keeps all his pulses going true and fast, and 
gathers impetus as he runs, until, if he be running towards 
anything better than wildfire, he may shoot up and become a 
constellation in the end. Lord look after his health, Lord 
have a care of his soul, says he; and he has at the key of 
the position, and swashes through incongruity and peril 
towards his aim. Death is on all sides of him with pointed 
batteries, as he is on all sides of all of us; unfortunate sur- 
prises gird him round; mim-mouthed friends and relations 
hold up their hands in quite a little elegiacal synod about his 
path: and what cares he for all this? Being a true lover of 
living, a fellow with something pushing and spontaneous on 
his inside, he must, like any other soldier, in any other stirring, 
deadly warfare, push on at his best pace until he touch the 
goal. "A peerage or Westminster Abbey!" cried Nelson^^ in 
his bright, boyish, heroic manner. These are great incentives; 
not for any of these, but for the plain satisfaction of living, 
of being about their business in some sort or other, do the 
brave, serviceable men of every nation tread down the nettle 
danger, and pass fljdngly over all the stumbling-blocks of 
prudence. Think of the heroism of Johnson, — think of that 
superb indifference to mortal Hmitation that set him upon his 
dictionary, and carried him through triumphantly to the end! 
Who, if he were wisely considerate of things at large, would 
ever embark upon any work much more considerable than a 
halfpenny post-card? Who would project a serial novel, 
after Thackeray and Dickens^^ had each fallen in mid-course? 
Who would find heart enough to begin to live, if he dallied 
with the consideration of death ? 

14. Nelson. Admiral Horatio Nelson, later Lord Nelson, victor 
of the Battle of the Nile (1798). 

15. TlLackeray and Dickens. Both these writers were accus- 
tomed to publish novels in serial form, and left their last works 
unfinished at the time of their death. 



358 ESSxlYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

And, after all, what sorry and pitiful quibbling all this is! 
To forego all the issues of living, in a parlor with a regulated 
temperature — as if that were not to die a hundred times over, 
and for ten years at a stretch! As if it were not to die in 
one's own lifetime, and without even the sad immunities of 
death ! As if it were not to die, and yet be the patient spec- 
tators of our own pitiable change ! The Permanent Possibility 
is preserved, but the sensations carefully held at arm's length, 
as if one kept a photographic plate in a dark chamber. It 
is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like 
a miser. It is better to live and be done with it than to die 
daily in the sick room. By all means begin your folio; even 
if the doctor does not give you a year, — even if he hesitates 
about a month, make one brave push and see what can be 
accomplished in a week. It is not only in finished under- 
takings that we ought to honor useful labor. A spirit goes 
out of the man who means execution, which outlives the most 
untimely ending. All who have meant good work with their 
whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die 
before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat 
strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in 
the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even 
if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, 
laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, 
flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, 
they should be at once tripped up and silenced; is there not 
something brave and spirited in such a termination? and does 
not life go down with a better grace, foaming in full body 
over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy 
deltas? When the Greeks made their fine saying that those 
whom the gods love die young, I cannot help believing they 
had this sort of death also in their eye. For surely, at what- 
ever age it overtake the man, this is to die young. Death 
has not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his 
heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of 



STEVENSON 



359 



being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise 
of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets 
are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of 
giory,^^ this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the 
spiritual land. 

16. trailing . . . clouds of glory. A phrase from Words- 
worth's "Intimations of Immortaiity." 



WASHINGTON IRVING 

[Washington Irving was born at New York in 1783; he received 
no formal education, but studied law, read abundantly, and very- 
early began to write for a newspaper published by his brother. 
Later he had part in a periodical called Salmagundi, devoted to 
miscellaneous papers much in the manner of Addison's and 
Steele's Spectator. He made his first real reputation as an author 
with a humorous history of New York under the Dutch, com- 
monly called Knickerbocker's History of New York, which ap- 
peared in 1809. From 1815 to 1832 he lived in Europe, devoting 
much of his time to the observation of men and manners in 
England, and making many friends there, thus fitting himself, 
both in his personality and his writings, to bring about a better 
feeling between America and the mother country than had been 
<iommon since the Revolution. It was while in England that 
he wrote the Sketch-Book papers, published in America in 1819 
under the pen-name of "Geoffrey Crayon," an imagined personal- 
ity like Isaac Bickerstaff and **The Spectator"; this work was 
much admired in both countries, especially for the Hudson 
River sketches, "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy 
Hollow." A journey to Spain resulted in other books, notably 
The Conquest of Granada and The Alhamhra (1829 and 1832). There- 
after Irving resided in his own country, except for a period of 
absence as American Minister to Spain. He established a home 
near Sleepy Hollow, on the banks of the Hudson, where he lived 
quietly but in the enjoyment of no little popularity, and where 
he died in 1859. The character of Irving is well reflected in his 
essays: it was marked always by geniality, friendliness, and 
cultivated good taste^ never by any remarkable originality or 
force.] 

THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING^ 

I HAVE often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the 
press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads, on which 
Nature seems to have inflicted the curse of barrenness, yet 
teem with voluminous productions. As a man travels on, 

1. This is one of the Sketch-Book papers, belonging to the group 
devoted to Irving's rambles in England. It is perhaps the best 
example of his imitation of the gentle satiric manner of Addi- 
son. 

360 



IRVING 361 

however, in the journey of life, his objects of wonder daily 
diminish, and he is continually finding out some very simple 
cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced, 
in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder 
upon a scene which unfolded to me some of the mysteries of 
the book-making craft, and at once put an end to my aston- 
ishment. 

I was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons 
of the British Museum, with that listlessness with which one 
is apt to saunter about a room in warm weather; sometimes 
lolling over the glass cases of minerals, sometimes studying 
the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy, and sometimes try- 
ing, with nearly equal success, to comprehend the allegorical 
paintings on the lofty ceilings. While I was gazing about in 
this idle way, my attention was attracted to a distant door, at 
the end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, but every 
now and then it would open, and some strange-favored^ being, 
generally clothed in black, would steal forth, and glide through 
the rooms, without noticing any of the surrounding objects. 
There was an air of mystery about this that piqued my languid 
curiosity, and I determined to attempt the passage of that 
strait, and to explore the unknown regions that lay beyond. 
The door yielded to my hand, with all that facility with which 
the portals of enchanted castles yield to the adventurous 
knight-errant. I found myself in a spacious chamber, sur- 
rounded with great cases of venerable books. Above the cases, 
and just under the cornice, were arranged a great number of 
black-looking portraits of ancient authors. About the room 
were placed long tables, with stands for reading and writing, 
at which sat many pale, cadaverous personages, poring intently 
over dusty volumes, rummaging among mouldy manuscripts, 
and taking copious notes of their contents. The most hushed 
stillness reigned through this mysterious apartment, excepting 
that you might hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper, 

2. 8trang>e-favored. Odd-looking-; favor formerly meant "face.'* 



362 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

or, occasionally, the deep sigh of one of these sages, as he 
shifted his position to turn over the page of an old folio, — • 
doubtless arising from that hollowness and flatulency incident 
to learned research. 

Now and then one of these personages would write some- 
thing on a small slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a 
familiar^ would appear, take the paper in profound silence, 
glide out of the room, and return shortly, loaded with pon- 
derous tomes, upon which the other would fall, tooth and nail, 
with famished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I had 
happened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged in the study 
of occult sciences. The scene reminded me of an old Arabian 
tale, of a philosopher who was shut up in an enchanted 
library, in the bosom of a mountain, that opened only once a 
year; where he made the spirits of the place obey his com- 
mands, and bring him books of all kinds of dark knowledge, 
so that at the end of a year, when the magic portal once more 
swung open on its hinges, he issued forth so versed in for- 
bidden lore as to be able to soar above the heads of the 
multitude, and to control the powers of nature. 

My curiosity being now fully aroused, I whispered to one 
of the familiars, as he was about to leave the room, and 
begged an interpretation of the strange scene before me. A 
few words were sufficient for the purpose: I found that these 
mysterious personages, whom I had mistaken for magi, were 
principally authors, and were in the very act of manufactur- 
ing books. I was, in fact, in the reading-room of the great 
British Library, an immense collection of volumes of all ages 
and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most 
of which are seldom read. To these sequestered pools of 
obsolete literature, therefore, do many modem authors repair, 
and draw buckets full of classic lore, or "pure English, unde- 
flled,"^ wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought. 

3. familiar. Attendant. 

4. Eugrlish nndefilccl. An allusion to Sponser's characteriza- 
tion of Chaucer as a "well of English undefiled." 



Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in a 
comer, and watched the process of this book manufactory, 
I noticed one lean, bilious-looking wight, who sought none but 
the most worm-eaten volumes, printed in black-letter.^ He 
was evidently constructing some work of profound erudition, 
that would be purchased by every man who wished to be 
thought learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his 
library, or laid open upon his table — but never read. I 
observed him, now and then, draw a large fragment of biscuit 
out of his pocket, and gnaw; whether it was his dinner, or 
whether he was endeavoring to keep off that exhaustion of 
the stomach produced by much pondering over dry works, I 
leave harder students than myself to determine. 

There was one dapper little gentleman in bright-colored 
clothes, with a chirping, gossiping expression of countenance, 
who had all the appearance of an author on good terms with 
his bookseller. After considering him attentively, I recognized 
in him a diligent getter-up of miscellaneous works, which 
bustled off well with the trade. I was curious to see how he 
manufactured his wares. He made more show and stir of 
business than any of the others; dipping into various books, 
fluttering over the leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out 
of one, a morsel out of another, "line upon line, precept upon 
precept, here a little and there a little."^ The contents of 
his book seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches^ 
cauldron in Macbeth. It was here a finger and there a thumb, 
toe of frog and blind-worm's sting, with his own gossip poured 
in like "baboon's blood,'' to make the medley "slab*^ and good." 

After .all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be 
implanted in authors for wise purposes? May it not be the 
way in which Providence has taken care that the seeds of 
knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, 

5. "black-letter. Gothic or Old Eng-lish type, commonly used 
from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. 

6. line upon line, etc. See Isaiah 28:13. 

7. slab. Thick, g'lutinous. 



364 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they 
were first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, though 
whimsically, provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime 
to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals which 
in themselves are little better than carrion, and apparently 
the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the corn-field, are 
in fact Nature's carriers to disperse and perpetuate her bless- 
ings. In like manner, the beauties and fine thoughts of ancient 
and obsolete writers are caught up by these flights of preda- 
tory authors, and cast forth, again to flourish and bear fruit 
in a remote and distant tract of time. Many of their works, 
also, undergo a kind of metempsychosis,^ and spring up under 
new forms. What was formerly a ponderous history revives 
in the shape of a romance, — an old legend changes into a 
modern play, — and a sober philosophical treatise furnishes the 
body for a whole series of bouncing and sparkling essays. 
Thus it is in the clearing of our American woodlands; where 
we burn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf 
oaks start up in their place; and we never see the prostrate 
trunk of a tree, mouldering into soil, but it gives birth to 
a whole tribe of fungi. 

Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion into 
which ancient writers descend; they do but submit to the 
great law of nature, which declares that all sublunary shapes 
of matter shall be limited in their duration, but w^hich decrees 
also that their elements shall never perish. Generation after 
generation, both in animal and vegetable life, passes away, 
but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and the 
species continue to flourish. Thus also do authors beget 
authors, and, having produced a numerous progeny, in a 
good old age they sleep with their fathers, — that is to say, 
with the authors w^ho preceded them, and from whom they 
had stolen. 

Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies I had 

8. metempsycliosis. Chang-e of soul into another body. 



IRVING 365 

leaned my head against a pile of reverend folios. Whether 
it was owing to the soporific emanations from these works, 
or to the profound quiet of the room, or to the lassitude 
arising from much wandering, or to an unlucky habit of nap- 
ping at improper times and places with which I am grievously 
afflicted, so it was that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my 
imagination continued busy, and indeed the same scene 
remained before my mind's eye, only a little changed in some 
of the details. I dreamt that the chamber was still decorated 
with the portraits of ancient authors, but the number was 
increased. The long tables had disappeared, and in place of 
the sage magi I beheld a ragged, threadbare throng, such as 
may be seen plying about the great repository of cast-off 
clothes, Monmouth Street. Whenever they seized upon a book, 
by one of those incongruities common to dreams, methought it 
turned into a garment of foreign or antique fashion, with 
which they proceeded to equip themselves. I noticed, how- 
ever, that no one pretended to clothe himself from any 
particular suit, but took a sleeve from one, a cape from 
another, a skirt from a third, thus decking himself out piece- 
meal, while some of. his original rags would peep out from 
among his borrowed ^erj. 

There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed 
ogling several mouldy polemical ^viiters through an eye-glass. 
He soon contrived to slijD on the voluminous mantle of one of 
the old fathers, and, having purloined the gray beard of 
another, endeavored to look exceedingly wise; but the smirk- 
ing commonplace of his countenance set at naught all the 
trappings of wisdom. One sickly looking gentlemen was 
busied embroidering a very flimsy garment with gold thread 
drawn out of several old court dresses of the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth. Another had trimmed himself magnificiently from 
an illuminated manuscript, had stuck a nosegay in his bosom, 
culled from "The Paradise of Dainty De\dces,"^ and, having 

9. Paradise of Dainty Devices. A once famous collection of 

lyrics, published 1576. 



366 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

put Sir Philip Sidney's^^ hat on one side of his head, strutted 
off with an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A third, who 
was but of puny dimensions, had bolstered himself out bravely 
with the spoils from several obscure tracts of philosophy, so 
that he had a very imposing front; but he was lamentably 
tattered in rear, and I perceived that he had patched his 
small-clothes with scraps of parchment from a Latin author. 

There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, who 
only helped themselves to a gem or so, which sparkled among 
their own ornaments without eclipsing them. Some, too, 
seemed to contemplate the costumes of the old writers, merely 
to imbibe their principles of taste, and to catch their air and 
spirit; but I grieve to say that too many were apt to array 
themselves, from top to toe, in the patchwork manner I have 
mentioned. I should not omit to speak of one genius, in drab 
breeches and gaiters, and an Arcadian^^ hat, who had a violent 
propensity to the pastoral, but whose rural wanderings had 
been confined to the classic haunts of Primrose HilP^ and the 
solitudes of the Regent's Park. He had decked himself in 
wreaths and ribbons from all the old pastoral poets, and, hang- 
ing his head on one side, went about with a fantastical, lacka- 
daisical air, "babbling about green fields."^^ But the personage 
that most struck my attention was a pragmatical old gentleman, 
in clerical robes, with a remarkably large and square but bald 
head. He entered the room wheezing and puffing, elbowed his 
way through the throng with a look of sturdy self-confidence, 
and, having laid hands upon a thick Greek quarto, clapped it 
upon his head, and swept majestically away in a formidable 
frizzled wig. 

In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly 
resounded from every side, of "Thieves! thieves !'' I looked, 

10. Sir Pliilip Sidney. One of the most dis tin g-ui shed lyric 
poets of Queen Elizabeth's reign. 

11. Arcadian. Of pastoral style. 

12. Primrose Hill . . . Regrent's Park. In London. 

13. "bahblirg" a"bOTit grreen fields. From the story of the 
<i"ath of Fal staff, in Shakespeare's Henry Fifth, II, iii. 



IRVING 367 

and la! the portraits about the walls became animated! The 
old authors thrust out first a head, then a shoulder, from the 
canvas, looked down curiously, for an instant, upon the motley 
throng, and then descended, with fury in their eyes, to claim 
their rifled property. The scene of scampering and hubbub 
that ensued baffles all description. The unhappy culprits 
endeavored in vain to escape with their plunder. On one 
side might be seen half a dozen old monks, stripping a modern 
professor; on another, there was sad devastation carried into 
the ranks of modern dramatic writers. Beaumont and 
Fletcher,^* side by side, raged round the field like Castor and 
Pollux,^ ^ and sturdy Ben Jonson^^ enacted more wonders than 
when a volunteer with the army in Flanders. As to the dapper 
little compiler of farragos,^ ^ mentioned some time since, he 
had arrayed himself in as many patches and colors as Harle- 
quin,^^ and there was as fierce a contention of claimants about 
him as about the dead body of Patroclus.^^ I was grieved to 
see many men, to whom I had been accustomed to look up with 
awQ and reverence, fain tO' steal off with scarce a rag to cover 
their nakedness. Just then my eye was caught by the prag- 
matical old gentleman in the Greek grizzled wig, who was 
scrambling away in sore affright with half a score of authors 
in full cry after him. They were close upon his haunches; 
in a twinkling off went his wig; at every turn some strip of 
raiment was peeled away; until in a few moments, from his 
domineering pomp he shrunk into a little pursy, "chopped 
bald shot,'^^^ and made his exit with only a few tags and rags 
fluttering at his back. 

14. Beatunont and Pletclier. Collaborating- dramatists of the 
early seventeenth century. 

15. Castor and Pollux, Twin brother warriors of Greek legen- 
dry. 

16. Ben Jonson. Elizabethan dramatist, who f ought in Flanders 
as a young man. 

17. farragros. Medleys. 

18. Harlegiun. An Italian clown. 

19. Patroclus. A Greek warrior slain by Hector at Troy. 

20. cliopp'd "bald shot. A Shakespearean phrase {Henry Fourth, 
Part 2, III, ii). 



368 ESSAYS— EJSGLISH AND AMERICAN 

There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe of this 
learned Theban,^^ that I burst into an immoderate fit of 
laughter, which broke the whole illusion. The tumult and the 
scuffle were at an end. The chamber resumed its usual appear- 
ance. The old authors shrunk back into their picture-frames, 
and hung in shadowy solemnity along the walls. In short, I 
found myself wide awake in my corner, with the whole assem- 
blage of bookworms gazing at me with astonishment. Nothing 
of the dream had been real but my burst of laughter, a sound 
never before heard in that grave sanctuary, and so abhorrent 
to the eiars of wisdom as to electrify the fraternity. The 
librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded whether I had 
a card of admission. At first I did not comprehend him, but 
I soon found that the library was a kind of literary "preserve/' 
subject to game laws, and that no one must presume to hunt 
there without special license and permission. In a word, I 
stood convicted of being an arrant poacher, and was glad to 
make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole pack of 
authors let loose upon me. 

21. learned TlieTban. Greek scholar. (A phrase of the mad 
king's in Shakespeare's Lear, III, iv). 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

[Ralph Waldo Emerson was born at Boston in 1803, and was 
graduated from Harvard College in 1821. For a time he taught, 
then took a theolog"ical course and entered the Unitarian min- 
istry; but in 1832 he resigned his Boston pastorate because of 
conscientious scruples regarding- certain church forms which 
he could not observe in the traditional manner. Henceforth he 
felt free to devote himself to the thing's of the spirit, apart from 
all org-anized external life of any kind; and this was character- 
istic of his whole philosophy — that the inner life is the only 
important one. He attracted attention as a thinker by his 
Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard in 1837, and by later 
addresses which made him in some demand as a public speaker, 
thoug-h he was never an orator in the usual sense. In 1847 he 
lectured in England. He published various volumes of essays 
and addresses, including also a few choice poems; he associated 
himself with other New England thinkers of the so-called 
"Transcendental" group in the periodical named The Dial (see 
also below, under Thoreau) and in a little "School of Philosophy" 
at Concord, where he lived. In all these ways his influence 
on the thoug-ht of his time was out of all proportion to the 
importance of any sing'le book that he published. In a spiritual 
way he was also associated with the anti-slavery movement, but 
his life had no events of a strictly public character. He died 
at his Concord hiome in 1882.] 



LOVE 



Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfillments; 

each of its joys ripens into a new want. Nature, uncontain- 

able, flowing, forelooking, in the first sentiment of kindness 

1. This essay was orig-inally the fourth lecture in the course on 
"Human Life," delivered in 1838-39. It is one of the noblest dis- 
cussions of the subject in our language, and, in particular, one of 
the best expressions of the teaching- of "Platonism" respecting the 
relations of body and soul, — that is, the doctrines which go back 
to the writing-s of Plato and his followers. Plato, for example 
taught that "the end of all liberal training should be the love of 
beauty," because the beauty of earthly forms is an image or copy 
designed to lead us to the divine idea of beauty which originated 
them. See page 377 for Emerson's development of the same 
thoug-ht 

269 



370 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

anticipates already a benevolence which shall lose all par- 
ticular regards in its general light. The introduction to this 
felicity is in a private and tender relation of one to one, 
which is the enchantment of human life; which, like a certain 
divine rage and enthusiasm, seizes on man at one period and 
works a revolution in his mind and body; unites him to his 
race, pledges him to the domestic and civic relations, carries 
him with new sympathy into nature, enhances the power of 
the senses, opens the imagination, adds to his character heroic 
and sacred attributes, establishes marriage, and gives perma- 
nence to human society. 

The natural association of the sentiment of love with the 
heyday of the blood seems to require that in order to portray 
it in vivid tints, which every youth and maid should confess 
to be true to their throbbing experience, one must not be too 
old. The delicious fancies of youth reject the least savor of a 
mature philosoi3hy, as chilling with age and pedantry their 
purple bloom. And therefore I know I incur the imputation 
of unnecessary hardness and stoicism from those who compose 
the Court and Parliament of Love. But from these formidable 
censors I shall appeal to my seniors. For it is to be con- 
sidered that this passion of which we speak, though it begin 
with the young, yet forsakes not the old, or rather suffers no 
one who is its servant to grow old, but makes the aged partici- 
pators of it not less than the tender maiden, though in a 
different and nobler sort. For it is a fire that, kindling its 
first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught 
from a wandering spark out of another private heart, glows 
and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of 
men and women, upon the universal heart of all, and so lights 
up the whole world and all nature vdth its generous flames. 
It matters not therefore whether we attempt to describe the 
passion at twenty, thirty, or at eighty years. He who paints 
it at the first period will lose some of its later, he who paints 
it at the last, some of its earlier traits. Only it is to be hoped 



EMERSON :^71 

that by patience and the Muses' aid we may attain to that 
inward view of the law which shall describe a truth ever young- 
and beautiful, so central that it shall commend itself to the 
eye at whatever angle beholden. 

And the first condition is that we must leave a too close 
and lingering adherence to facts, and study the sentiment as 
it appeared in hope, and not in history. For each man sees 
his own life defaced and disfigured, as the life of man is not 
to his imagination. Each man sees over his own experience 
a certain stain of en^or, whilst that of other men looks fair 
and ideal. Let any man go back to those delicious relations 
which make the beauty of his life, which have given him 
sincerest instruction and nourishment, he will shrink and 
moan. Alas ! I know not why, but infinite compunctions 
embitter in mature life the remembrances of budding joy, and 
cover every beloved name. Every thing is beautiful seen 
from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour 
if seen as experience. Details are melancholy; the plan is 
seemly and noble. In the actual world — the painful kingdom 
of time and place — dwell care and canker and fear. With 
thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy. 
Round it all the Muses sing. But grief cleaves to names and 
persons and the partial interests of today and yesterday. 

The strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion which 
this topic of personal relations usurps in the conversation of 
society. What do we wish to know of any worthy person so 
much as how he has sped in the history of this sentiment? 
What books in the circulating library circulate? How we glow 
over these novels of passion, when the story is told with any 
spark of truth and nature 1 And what fastens attention, in the 
intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between 
two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before and never 
shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance or 
betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We 
understand them and take the warmest interest in the develop- 



»na 



372 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

ment of the romance. All mankind love a lover. The earliest 
demonstrations of complacency and kindness are nature's most 
winning pictures. It is the dawn of civility and grace in the 
coarse and rustic. The rude village boy teases the girls about 
the schoolhouse door; — but today he comes running into the 
entry and meets one fair child disposing her satchel; he holds 
her books to help her, and instantly it seems to him as if she 
removed herself from him infinitely, and was a sacred pre- 
cinct. Among the throng of girls he runs rudely enough, 
but one alone distances him; and these two little neighbors, 
that were so close just now, have learned to respect each 
other's personality. Or who can avert his eyes from the 
engaging, half-artful, half -artless ways of school-girls who 
go into the country shops to buy a skein of silk or a sheet of 
paper, and talk half an hour about nothing with the broad- 
faced, good-natured shop-boy. In the village they are on a 
perfect equality, which love delights in, and without any 
coquetry the happy, affectionate nature of woman flows out 
in this pretty gossip. The girls may have little beauty, yet 
plainly do they establish between them and the good boy the 
most agreeable, confiding relations; what with their fun and 
their earnest, about Edgar and Jonas and Almira, and who 
was invited to the party, and who danced at the dancing- 
school, and when the singing-school would begin, and other 
nothings concerning which the parties cooed. By and by that 
boy wants a wife, and very truly and heartily will he know 
where to find a sincere and sweet mate, without any risk such 
as Milton deplores^ as incident to scholars and great men. 

I have been told that in some public discourses of mine 
my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to 
the personal relations. But now I almost shrink at the 
remembrance of such disparaging words. For persons are 

2. such as Milton deplores. In arg'uments which Milton wrote 
in behalf of liberal divorce laws. "For all the wariness can be 
used," he said, "it may yet befall a discreet man to be mistaken in 
his choice"; and "the soberest and best g-overned men are leatt 
practiced in these affairs " 



EMERSOi^ . 373 

love's world, and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the 
' debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the power 
of love, without being tempted to unsay, as treasonable to 
nature, aught derogatory to the social instincts. For though 
the celestial rapture falling out of heaven seizes only upon 
those of tender age, and although a beauty overpowering all 
analysis or comparison and putting us quite beside ourselves 
we can seldom see after thirty years, yet the remembrance of 
these visions outlasts all other, remembrances, and is a wreath 
of flowers on the oldest brows. But here is a strange fact; it 
may seem to many men, in revising their experience, that they 
have no fairer page in their life's book than the delicious mem- 
ory of some passages wherein aifeetion contrived to give a 
witchcraft, surpassing the deep attraction of its own truth, 
to a parcel of accidental and trivial circumstances. In looking 
backward they may find that several things which were not 
the charm have more reality to this groping memory than the 
charm itself which embalmed them. But be our experience in 
particulars what it may, no man ever forgot the visitations of 
that power to his heart and brain, which created all things 
anew; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry, and art; 
which made the face of nature radiant with purple light, the 
morning and the night varied enchantments; when a single 
tone of one voice could make the heart bound, and the most 
trivial circumstance associated with one form is put in the 
amber of memory; when he became all eye when one was 
present, and all memory when one was gone; when the youth 
becomes a watcher of windows and studious of a glove, a 
veil, a ribbon, or the wheels of a carriage; when no place is 
too solitary and none too silent for him who has richer 
company and sweeter conversation in his new thoughts than 
any old friends, though best and purest, can give him; for 
the figures, the motions, the words of the beloved object are 
not, like other images, written in water, but, as Plutarch said, 
"enamelled in fire," and make the study of midnight: — 



374 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Tliou art not gone being gone, where'er thou art, 

Thou leav'st in him thy watchful eyes, in him thy loving heart. 3 

In tli^ noon and the afternoon of life we still throb at the 
recollection of days when happiness was not happy enough, 
but must be drugged with the relish of pain and fear; for he 
touched the secret of the matter who said of love, — 

All other pleasures are not worth its pains :4 

and when the day was not long enough, but the night too 
must be consumed in keen recollections; when the head boiled 
all night on the pillow with the generous deed it resolved on ; 
when the moonlight was a pleasing fever and the stars were 
letters and the flowers ciphers and the air was coined into 
song; when all business seemed an impertinence, and all the 
men and women running to and fro in the streets, mere 
pictures. 

The passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all 
things alive and significant. Nature grows conscious. Every 
bird on the boughs of the tree sings now to his heart and soul. 
The notes are almost articulate. The clouds have faces as he 
looks on them. The trees of the forest, the waving grass and 
the peeping flowers have grown intelligent; and he almost 
fears to trust them with the secret which they seem to invite. 
Yet nature soothes and sympathizes. In the green solitude he 
finds a dearer home than with men : — 

Fountain-heads and pathless groves. 
Places which pale passion loves, 
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls 
Are safely housed, save bats and owls, 
A midnight bell, a passing groan, — 
These are the sounds we feed upon.s 

3. Tliou art not g*one, etc. From the Epithalamium, or mar- 
riag-e-ode, written by John Donne for the marriage of the Earl of 
Somerset, 1613. 

4. All other pleasures, etc. Perhaps a misquotation from a 
song" in Dryden's Tyrannic Love: 

Pains of love be sweeter far 
Than all other pleasures are. 

5. Pountain-lieads, etc. From a song- in Fletcher's Nice Valour, 



EMERSON 375 

Behold there in the vv^ood the fine madman ! He is a palace 
of sweet sounds and sights; he dilates; he is twice a man; he 
walks with arms akimbo; he soliloquizes; he accosts the grass 
and the trees; he feels the blood of the violet, the clover, and 
the lily in his veins ; and he talks with the brook that wets his foot. 

The heats that have opened his perceptions of natural beauty 
have made him love music and verse. It is a fact often 
observed, that men have written good verses under the inspira- 
tion of passion, who cannot write well under any other 
circumstances. 

The like force has the passion over all his nature. It 
expands the sentiment; it makes the clown^ gentle and gives 
the coward heart. Into the most pitiful and abject it will 
infuse a heart and courage to defy the world, so only it 
have the countenance of the beloved object. In giving him 
to another it still more gives him to himself. He is a new 
man, with new perceptions, new and keener purposes, and a 
religious solemnity of character and aims. He does not 
longer appertain to his family and society; he is somewhat; 
he is a person; he is a soul. 

And here let us examine a little nearer the nature of that 
influence which is thus potent over the human youth. Beauty, 
whose revelation to man we now celebrate, welcome as the 
sun wherever it pleases to shine, which pleases everybody 
with it and with themselves, seems sufficient to itself. The 
lover cannot paint his maiden to his fancy poor and solitary. 
Like a tree in flower, so much soft, budding, informing loveli- 
ness is society for itself; and she teaches his eye why Beauty 
was pictured with Loves and Graces attending her steps. 
Her existence makes the world rich. Though she extrudes all 
other persons from his attention as cheap and unworthy, she 
indemnifies him by carrying out her own being into somewhat 
impersonal, large, mundane, so that the maiden stands to him 
for a representative of all select things and virtues. For that 

6. tlie clown. The rustic boor. 



376 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

reason the lover never sees personal resemblances in his mis- 
tress to her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a 
likeness to her mother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her 
blood. The lover sees no resemblance except to summer eve- 
nings and diamond mornings, to rainbows and the song of birds. 
The ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue. Who 
can analyze the nameless charm which glances from one and 
another face and form*? We are touched with emotions of 
tenderness and complacency, but we cannot find whereat this 
dainty emotion, this wandering gleam, points. It is destroyed 
for the imagination by any attempt to refer it to organization. 
Nor does it point to any relations of friendship or love known 
and described in society, but, as it seems to me, to a quite 
other and unattainable sphere, to relations of transcendent 
delicacy and sweetness, to what roses and violets hint and ' 
foreshow. We cannot approach beauty. Its nature is like 
opaline dove's-neck lusters, hovering and evanescent. Herein 
it resembles the most excellent things, which all have this 
rainbow character, defying all attempts at appropriation and 
use. What else did Jean Paul Richter'^ signify, when he 
said to music, ^^Away !. away ! thou speakest to me of things 
which in all my endless life I have not found and shall not 
find." The same fluency may be observed in every work 
of the plastic arts. The statue is then beautiful when it 
begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of 
criticism and can no longer be defined by compass and measur- 
ing-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it 
and to say what it is in the act of doing. The god or hero 
of the sculptor is always represented in a transition from 
that which is representable to the senses, to that which is not. 
Then first it ceases to be a stone. The same remark holds of 
painting. And of poetry the success is not attained when it 
lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new 
endeavors after the unattainable. Concerning it Land or 



7. Jean Paul Ricliter. A German author (died lS2r.), 



pas 



EMERSON 377 

inquires "whether it is not to be referred to some purer state 
of sensation and existence.'' 

In like manner, personal beauty is then first charming and 
itself when it dissatisfies us with any end; when it becomes 
a story without an end; when it suggests gleams and visions 
and not earthly satisfactions; when it makes the beholder feel 
his un worthiness ; when he cannot feel his right to it, though 
he were Caesar; he cannot feel more right to it than to the 
firmament and the splendors of a sunset. 

Hence arose the saying, "If I love you, what is that to you'?" 
We say so because we feel that what we love is not in your will, 
but above it. It is not you, but your radiance. It is that which 
you know not in yourself and can never know. 

This agrees well with that high philosophy of Beauty which 
the ancient writers^ delighted in; for they said that the soul 
of man, embodied here on earth, went roaming up and down 
in quest of that other world of its own out of which it came 
into this, but was soon stupefied by the light of the natural 
sun, and unable to see any other objects than those of this 
■\^^orld, which are but shadows of real things. Therefore the 
Deity sends the glory of youth before the soul, that it may 
avail itself of beautiful bodies as aids to its recollection of 
the celestial good and fair; and the man beholding such a 
person in the female sex runs to her and finds the highest joy 
in contemplating the form, movement, and intelligence of this 
person, because it suggests to him the presence of that which 
indeed is within the beauty, and the cause of the beauty. 

If, however, from too much conversing with material objects, 
the soul was gross, and misplaced its satisfaction in the body, 
it reaped nothing but sorrow; body being unable to fulfill the 
promise which beauty holds out; but if, accepting the hint of 
these visions and suggestions which beauty makes to his miad, 
the soul passes through the body and falls to admire strokes 

8. the ancient writers. Plato and the Platonists; see note on 
pag-e 369. 



378 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

of character, and the lovers contemplate one another in their 
discourses and their actions, then they pass to the true palace 
of beauty, more and more inflame their love of it, and by this 
love extinguishing the base affection,^ as the sun puts out 
fire by shining on the hearth, they become pure and hallowed. 
By conversation with that which is in itself excellent, mag- 
nanimous, lowly, and just, the lover comes to a warmer love 
of these nobilities, and a quicker apprehension of them. Then 
he passes from loving them in one to loving them in all, and 
so is the one beautiful soul only the door through which he 
enters to the society of all true and pure souls. In the par- 
ticular society of his mate he attains a clearer sight of any 
spot, any taint which her beauty has contracted from this 
world, and is able to point it out, and this with mutual joy 
that they are now able, without offense, to indicate blemishes 
and hindrances in each other, and give to each all help and 
comfort in curing the same. And beholding in many souls 
the traits of the divine beauty, and separating in each soul 
that which is divine from the taint which it has contracted 
in the world, the lover ascends to the highest beauty, to the 
love and knowledge of the Divinity, by steps on this ladder of 
created souls. 

Somewhat like this have the truly wise told us of love in 
all ages. The doctrine is not old, nor is it new. If Plato, 
Plutarch, and Apuleius taught it, so have Petrarch, Angelo, 
and Milton.^^ It awaits a truer unfolding in opposition and 
rebuke to that subterranean prudence which presides at 
marriages with words that take hold of the upper world, whilst 
one eye is prowling in the cellar; so that its gravest discourse 



9. "base affection. The lower or basic (fundamental to the 
hig-her). 

10. Plutarcli, etc. Plutarch, the Greek biographer and essayist, 
of the first century a. d. ; Apuleius a Roman philosopher of the 
Platonic school, of the second century; Fetrarcli the Italian poet 
of the fourteenth century, who devoted much of his verse to the 
Platonic view of love; Ang'elo the sculptor (Michelang-elo Buonar- 
otti) of the sixteenth century, who also wrote platonic love poetry. 



I 



ExMerso:n 379 

lias a savor of hams and powdering-tubs.^^ Worst, when 
this sensualism intrudes into the education of young women, 
and withers the hope and affection of human nature by teach- 
ing that marriage signifies nothing but a housewife^s thrift, 
and that woman^s life has no other aim. 

But this dream of love, though beautiful, is only one scene 
in our play. In the procession of the soul from within out- 
ward, it enlarges its circles ever, like the pebble thrown into 
the pond, or the light proceeding from an orb. The rays of 
the soul alight first on things nearest, on every utensil and toy, 
on nurses and domestics, on the nouse and yard and passengers, 
on the circle of household acquaintance, on politics and geog- 
raphy and history. But things are ever grouping themselves 
according to higher or more interior laws. Neighborhood, size, 
numbers, habits, persons, lose by degrees their power over us. 
Cause and effect, real affinities, the longing for harmony 
between the soul and the circumstance, the progressive, idealiz- 
ing instinct, predominate later, and the step backward from 
the higher to the lower relations is impossible. Thus even 
love, which is the deification of persons, must become more 
impersonal every day. Of this at first it gives no hint. Little 
think the youth and maiden who are glancing at each other 
across crowded rooms with eyes so full of mutual intelligence, 
of the precious fruit long hereafter to proceed from this new, 
quite external stimulus. The work of vegetation begins first 
in the irritability of the bark and leaf -buds. From exchanging 
glances, they advance to acts of courtesy, of gallantry, then 
to fiery passion, to plighting troth and marriage. Passion 
beholds its object as a perfect unit. The soul is wholly 
embodied, and the body is wholly ensouled: — 
Her pure and eloquent blood 
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, 
That one might almost say her body thought.! 2 

11. powdering"- tubs. Vessels for the salting- or "corning" of 
. beef. 

12. Her pure and elociuent blood, etc. From John Donne's poem 
called "The Second Anniversary," in memory of Mistress Eliza- 
beth Drury. 



380 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Romeo, if dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the 
heavens fine.^^ Life, with this pair, has no other aim, asks no 
more, than Juliet, — than Romeo. Night, day, studies, talents, 
kingdoms, religion, are all contained in this form full of soul, 
in this soul which is all form. The lovers delight in endear- 
ments, in avowals of love, in comparisons of their regards. 
When alone, they solace themselves with the remembered image 
of the other. Does that other see the same star, the same 
melting cloud, read the same book, feel the same emotion, that 
now delights me*? They try and weigh their affection, and 
addiitg up costly advantages, friends, opportunities, properties, 
exult in discovering that willingly, joyfully, they would give 
all as a ransom for the beautiful, the beloved head, not one 
hair of which shall be harmed. But the lot of humanity is on 
these children. Danger, sorrow, and pain arrive to them as to 
all. Love prays. It makes covenants with Eternal Power in 
behalf of this dear mate. The union which is thus effected and 
which adds a new value to every atom in nature — for it trans- 
mutes every thread throughout the whole web of relation into 
a golden ray, and bathes the soul in a new and sweeter element 
— is yet a temporary state. Not always can flowers, pearls, 
poetry, protestations, nor even home in another heart, content 
the awful soul that dwells in clay. It arouses itself at last 
from these endearments, as toys, and puts on the harness and 
aspires to vast and universal aims. The soul which is in the 
soul of each, craving a perfect beatitude, detects incongruities, 
defects, and disproportion in the behavior of the other. Hence 
arise surprise, expostulation, and pain. Yet that which drew 
them to each other was signs of loveliness, signs of virtue; 
and these virtues are there, however eclipsed. They appear 
and reappear and continue to attract; but the regard changes, 

13. Romeo, if dead, etc. From Juliet's words in Romeo and Juliet, 
III, ii: 

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, 
Take him and cut him out in little stars. 
And he will make the f?ce of heaven so fine 
That all the world will be in love with night. 



EMERSON 381 

quits the sign and attaches to the substance. This repairs the 
wounded affection. Meantime, as life wears on, it proves 
a game of permutation and combination of all possible posi- 
tions of the parties, to employ all the resources of each and 
acquaint each with the strength and weakness of the other. 
For it is the nature and end of this relation that they should 
represent the human race to each other. All that is in the 
world, which is or ought to be known, is cunningly wrought 
into the texture of man, of woman : — 

The person love does to us fit, 

Like manna, has the taste of all in it.i* 

The world rolls; the circumstances vary every hour. The 
'angels that inhabit this temple of the body appear at the 
windows, and the gnomes and vices also. By all the virtues 
they are united. If there be virtue, all the vices are known 
as such; they confess and flee. Their once flaming regard 
is sobered by time in either breast, and, losing in violence what 
it gains in extent, it becomes a thorough good understanding. 
They resign each other without complaint to the good oflices 
which man and woman are severally appointed to discharge in 
time, and exchange the passion which once could not lose sight 
of its object, for a cheerful disengaged furtherance, whether 
present or absent, of each other's designs. At last they dis- 
cover that all which at first drew them together, — those once 
sacred features, that magical play of charms, — was deciduous, 
had a prospective end, like the scaffolding by which the house 
was built; and the purification of the intellect and the heart 
from year to year is the real marriage, foreseen and pre- 
pared from the first, and wholly above their consciousness. 
Looking at these aims with which two persons, a man and a 
woman, so variously and correlatively gifted, are shut up in 
one house to spend in the nuptial society forty or fifty years, 
I do not wonder at the emphasis with which the heart prophe- 

14. The person, eta From a poem of Cowley's, "Resolved to Be 
Beloved." 



382 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

sies this crisis from early infancy, at the profuse beauty with 
which the instincts deck the nuptial bower, and nature and 
intellect and art emulate each other in the gifts and the 
melody they bring to the epithalamium. 

Thus are we put in training for a love which knows not 
sex, nor person, nor partiality, but which seeks virtue and 
wisdom everywhere, to the end of increasing virtue and wis- 
dom. We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That 
is our permanent state. But we are often made to feel that 
our affections are but tents of a night. Though slowly and 
with pain, the objects of the affections change, as the objects 
of thought do. There are moments when the affections rule 
and absorb the man and make his happiness dependent on a 
person or persons. But in health the mind is presently seen 
again, — its overarching vault, bright with galaxies of immu- 
table lights, and the warm loves and fears that swept over us 
as clouds must lose their finite character and blend with God, 
to attain their own perfection. But we need not fear that we 
can lose anything by the progress of the soul. The soul may 
be trusted to the end. That which is so beautiful and attractive 
as these relations, must be succeeded and supplanted only by 
what is more beautiful, and so on for ever. 

HEROISM! 

In the elder English dramatists, and mainly in the plays 
of Beaumont and rietcher,^ there is a constant recognition of 
gentility, as if a noble behavior were as easily marked in the 
society of their age as color is in our American population. 
When any Rodrigo,^ Pedro, or Valerio enters, though he be 
a stranger, the duke or governor exclaims, *^This is a gentle- 
man," — and proffers civilities without end: but all the rest 
are slag and refuse. In harmony with this delight in personal 

1. This essay was based on a lecture g-iven under the same 
name, in the course on "Human Culture" (1837-38). 

2. Beaumont and Fletcher. See note on pag-e 367. 

3. I&Gdri^o, etc. Type-names from these dramas, which are 
larg-ely located in Italian or Spanish scenes. 



EMERSON ' 383 

advantages there is in their plays a certain heroic cast of 
character and dialogue, — as in Bonduca, Sophocles/' The Mad 
Lover^ The Double Marriage^ — ^wherein the speaker is so earn- 
est and cordial and on such deep grounds of character that 
the dialogue, on the slightest additional incident in the plot, 
rises naturally into poetry. Among many texts take the fol- 
lowing. The Roman Martins has conquered Athens, — all but 
the invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, and 
Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of the latter inflames Martins, 
and he seeks to save her husband; but Sophocles will not ask 
his life, although assured that a word will save him, and the 
execution of both proceeds: — 

Valerius. Bid thy wife farewell. 

Soph. Noj I will take no leave. My Dorigen, 

Yonder, above, 'bout Ariadne's crown,5 

My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste. 
Dor, Stay, Sophocles, — with this tie up my sight; 

Let not soft nature so transformed be, 

And lose her gentler sexed humanity, 

To make me see my lord bleed. So, 't is well; 

Xever one object underneath the sun 

Will I behold before my Sophocles: 

Farewell ; now teach the Romans how to die. 
Mar, Dost know what 't is to die? 
Soph, Thou dost not, Martius, 

And, therefore, not what 't is to live; to die 

Is to begin to live. It is to end 

An old, stale, weary work and to commence 

A newer and a better. 'T is to leave 

Deceitful knaves for the society 

Of gods and goodness. Thou thyself must part 

At last from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs. 

And prove thy fortitude what then 't will do. 

4. SoplLocles. Not the title of any of the Beaumont and 
Fletcher plays; Emerson evidently means by it the one called 
The Triumph of Honour, from which the long" quotation is taken, 

5. Ariadne's crown. A constellation said to have been placed 
in the heavens by Bacchus in honor of Ariadne. 



384 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

Val. 6ut art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy Jife thus? 

Soph. Why should I grieve or vex for being sent 
To them I ever loved best ? Now I'll kneel, 
But with my back toward thee: 't is the last duty 
This trunk can do the gods. 

Mar, Strike, strike, Valerius, 

Or Martins' heart will leap out at his mouth. 
This is a man, a woman. Kiss thy lord, 
And live with all the freedom you were wont. 

love! thou doubly hast afflicted me 

With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart. 
My hand shall cast thee quick into my urn, 
Ere thou transgress this knot of piety. 

Val. What ails my brother? 

Soph, Martins, O Martins, 

'Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. 

Dor. star of Rome! what gratitude can speak 
Fit words to follow such a deed as this? 

Mar. This admirable duke, Valerius, 
With his disdain of fortune and of death, 
Captived himself, has captivated me, 
And though my arm hath ta'en his body here. 
His soul hath subjugated Martins' soul. 
By Romulus, he is all soul, I think; 
He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved, 
Then we have vanquished nothing; he is free, 
And Martins walks now in captivity. 

1 da not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, 
or oration that our press vents in the last few years, which 
goes to the same tune. We have a great many flutes and 
flageolets, but not often the sound of any fife. Yet Words- 
worth's "Laodamia,'' and the ode of "Dion," and some son- 
nets, have a certain noble music; and Scott will sometimes 
draw a stroke like the portrait of Lord Evandale® given by 

o. portrait of l^ord Evandale. In Old Mortality, chapter xliii: 
"Lrord Evandale is a malignant, of heart like flint, and brow like 
adamant; the goods of the world fall on him like leaves on tho 
frost-bound earth, and unmoved he will see them whirled off 
by the first wind." 



EMERSON 385 

Balfour of Burley. Thomas Carlyle, with his natural taste 
for what is manly and daring in character, has suffered no 
heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his biographical and 
historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns has given us a 
song or two. In the Harleian Miscellanies'^ there is an account 
of the battle of Lutzen which deserves to be read. And Simon 
Ockley's^ History of the Saracens recounts the prodigies of 
individual valor, with admiration all the more evident on the 
part of the narrator that he seems to think that his place in 
Christian Oxford requires of him some proper protestations 
of abhorrence. But if we explore the literature of Heroism 
we shall quickly come to Plutarch,® who is its doctor and 
historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epami- 
nondas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more 
deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each 
of his ^^Lives^' is a refutation to the despondency and cow- 
ardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, 
a Stoicism not of the schools but of the blood, shines in every 
anecdote, and has given that book its immense fame. 

We need books of this tart cathartic virtue more than books 
of political science or of private economy. Life is a festival 
only to the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of 
prudence, it wears a ragged and dangerous front. The viola- 
tions of the laws of nature by our predecessors and our con- 
temporaries are punished in us also. The disease and deform- 
ity around us certify the infraction of natural, intellectual, 
and moral laws, and often violation on violation to breed such 
compound misery. A lock-jaw that bends a man's head back 
to his heels ; hydrophobia that makes him bark at his wife and 
babes ; insanity that makes him eat grass ; war, plague, cholera, 
famine, indicate a certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had 

7. Sarlelan mscellanles. Medieval Eng-lish writing's pub- 
lllshed from manuscripts collected by Robert Harley, Earl of 
(Oxford. 

8. Ockley. A student of Oriental history (died 1720). 

9. Plutarch. See note on pag-e 378. 



386 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

its inlet by human crime, must have its outlet by human suf- 
fering. Unhappily no man exists who has not in his own 
person become to some amount a stockholder in the sin, and 
so made himself liable to a share in the expiation. 

Our culture therefore must not omit the arming of the 
man. Let him hear in season that he is born into the state 
of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being 
require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, 
Lut warned, self-collected, and neither defying nor dreading 
the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, 
and with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob by 
the absolute truth of his speech and the rectitude of his 
behavior. 

Towards all this external evil the man within the breast 
assumes a warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope 
single-handed with the infinite army of enemies. To this 
military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism. 
Its rudest form is the contempt for safety and ease which 
makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self -trust which 
slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its 
energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The 
hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can 
shake his will, but pleasantly and as it were merrily he 
advances to his own music, alike in frightful alarms and in 
the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness. There is somewhat 
not philosophical in heroism; there is somewhat not holy in 
it; it seems not to know that other souls are of one texture 
wdth it; it has pride; it is the extreme of individual nature. 
Nevertheless we must profoundly revere it. There is some- 
w^hat in great actions which does not allow us to go behind 
them. Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is 
always right; and although a different breeding, different 
religion, and greater intellectual activity would have modified 
or even reversed the particular action, yet for the hero that 
thing he does is the highest deed, and is not open to the 



EMERSON 387 

censure of philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of the 
unschooled man that he finds a quality in him that is negli- 
gent of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of hatred, of 
reproach, and knows that his will is higher and more excellent 
than all actual and all possible antagonists. 

Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind 
and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and 
good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an 
individuals character. Now to no other man can its wisdom 
appear as it does to him, for every man must be supposed to 
see a little farther on his own proper path than any one else. 
Therefore just and wise men take umbrage at his act, until 
after some little time be past; then they see it to be in unison 
with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean 
contrary to a sensual prosperity ;^^ for every heroic act meas- 
ures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it 
finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol. 

Self -trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of 
the soul at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance 
of falsehood and wrong, and the power to bear all that caa 
be inflicted by evil agents. It speaks the truth and it is just, 
generous, hospitable, temperate, scornful of petty calculations, 
and scornful of being scorned. It persists; it is of an un- 
daunted boldness and of a fortitude not to be wearied out. 
Its jest is the littleness of common life. That false prudence 
which dotes on health and wealth is the butt and merriment 
of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus,^^ is almost ashamed of 
its body. What shall it say then to the sugar-plums and cats'- 
cradles, to the toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and custard, 
which rack the wit of all society? What joys has kind nature 
provided for us dear creatures I There seems to be no interval 

10. sensual prosperity. Prosperity in a material or worldly 
sense. 

11. Flotinus. A mystical philosopher of the third century, of 
whom his biographer had said that he lived so wholly in the. 
speculative life as to seem ashamed of his bodily existence. 



388 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not 
master of the world, then it is its dupe. Yet the little man 
takes the great hoax so innocently, works in it so headlong \ 
and believing, is born red, and dies gray, arranging his toilet, 
attending on his own health, laying traps for sweet food and 
strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy 
with a little gossip or a little praise, that the great soul can- 
not choose but laugh at such earnest nonsense. ^^Indeed, these 
humble considerations make me out of love with greatness. 
What a disgrace it is to me to take note how many pairs of 
silk stockings thou hast, namely, these, and those that were 
the peach-colored ones ; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, 
as, one for superfluity, and one other for use!"^^ 

Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider 
the inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, i 
reckon narrowly the loss of time and the unusual display; j 
the soul of a better quality thrusts back the unseasonable 
economy into the vaults of life, and says, I will obey the God, 
and the sacrifice and the fire he will provide. Ibn Haukal,^' 
the Arabian geographer, describes a heroic extreme in the 
hospitality of Sogd, in Bukharia. ^'When I was in Sogd I 
saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were 
open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the 
reason, and was told that the house had not been shut, night 
•or day, for a hundred years. Strangers may present them- 
selves at any hour and in whatever number; the master has 
amply provided for the reception of the men and their ani- 
mals, and is never happier than when they tarry for some 
time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country.'' 
The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, 
or money, or shelter, to the stranger, — so it be done for love 
and not for ostentation, — do, as it were, put God under obli- 

12. Indeed, etc. Said by Prince Hal to Poins, in the second 
part of Shakespeare's Henry Fourth, IV, ii. 

13. Ibn Haukal. Author of a famous work on his travels, in 
the tenth century. 



EMERSON 389 

gation to them, so perfect are the compensations of the 
universe. In some way the time they seem to lose is redeemed 
and the pains they seem to take remunerate themselves. These 
men fan the flame of human love and raise the standard of 
civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must be for 
service and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The 
brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor 
of its table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it 
hath, but its own majesty can lend a better grace to ban- 
nocks^* and fair water than belong to city feasts. 

The temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish 

to do no dishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for 

I its elegancy, not for its austerity. It seems not worth his 

: while to be solemn and denounce with bitterness flesh-eating 

I or wine-drinking, the use of tobacco, or opium, or tea, or 

silk, or gold. A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how 

he dresses; but without railing or precision his living is 

natural and poetic. John Eliot,^^ the Indian Apostle, drank 

' water, and said of wine, — ^^It is a noble, generous liquor and 

we should be humbly thankful for it, but, as I remember, 

water was made before it.'' Better still is the temperance 

of King David,^^ who poured out on the ground unto the 

Lord the water which three of his warriors had brought him 

to drink at the peril of their lives. 

It is told of Brutus, that when he fell on his sword after 
the battle of Philippi, he quoted a line of Euripides, — -"O 
Virtue ! I have followed thee through life, and I find thee 
at last but a shade.'' I doubt not the hero is slandered by 
this report. The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its 
nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. 
The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is 



14. baniiocks. Oatmeal cakes. 

15. Jolin Sllot. The first missionary to the American Indians 
(died 1690). 

16. Xingr David. See i Chronicles 11:16-19. 



390 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, 
and can very well abide its loss. 

But that which takes my fancy most in the heroic class, 
is the good-humor and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height 
to which common duty can very well attain, to suffer and to 
dare with solemnity. But these rare souls set opinion, suc- 
cess, and life at so cheap a rate that they will not soothe their 
enemies by petitions, or the show of sorrow, but wear their 
own habitual greatness. Scipio,^"^ charged with peculation, 
refuses to do himself so great a disgrace as to wait for justi- 
fication, though he had the scroll of his accounts in his hands, 
but tears it to pieces before the tribunes. Socrates's con- 
demnation^^ of himself to be maintained in all honor in the 
Prytaneum, during his life, and. Sir Thomas More's^^ play- 
fulness at the scaffold, are of the same strain. In Beaumont 
and Fletcher's Sea VoyagCj Juletta tells the stout captain and 
his company, — 

Jul. Why, slaves, 't is in our power to hang ye. 
Master. Very likely, 

'T is in our powers, then, to be hanged and scorn ye. 

These replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and 
glow of a perfect health. The great will not condescend to 
take any thing seriously; all must be as gay as the song of 
a canary, though it were the building of cities or the eradica- 
tion of old and foolish churches and nations which have cum- 
bered the earth long thousands of years. Simple hearts put 
all the history and customs of this world behind them, and 

17. Scipio. See note on page 46. 

18. Socrates's condemnation. A quizzical remark of Socrates's 
at the time of his trial, as recorded by Plato, to the effect that 
he deserved rather to be maintained at the Prytaneum, where 
disting-uished visitors of Athens were lodged, than to be con- 
demned to death. 

19. Sir Thomas More. Executed in 1535. He was said to have 
asked to be helped up the steps of the scaffold, adding that on 
the wa.y down he could fend for himself; also, to have arranged 
his beard out of the way of the axe, saying that "it had never 
committed treason." 



EMERSOX 391 

play their own game in innocent defiance of the Biue-Laws^^ 
of the world; and such would appear, could we see the human 
race assembled in vision, like little children frolicking together, 
though to the eyes of mankind at large they wear a stately 
and solemn garb of works and influences. 

The interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a 
romance over the boy who grasps the forbidden book under 
his bench at school, our delight in the hero, is the main fact 
to our purpose. All these great and transcendent properties 
are ours. If we dilate in beholding the Greek energy, the 
Roman pride, it is that we are already domesticating the 
same sentiment. Let us find room for this great guest in our 
small houses. The first step of worthiness will be to disabuse 
us of our superstitious associations with places and times, 
with number and size. Why should these words, Athenian, 
Roman, Asia, and England, so tingle in the ear? Where the 
heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in 
any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, 
and Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves 
names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; 
and, if we will tarry a little, we may come to learn that here 
is best. See to it only that thyself is here, and art and nature, 
hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being shall 
not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest. Epami- 
nondas,^^ brave and affectionate, does not seem to us to need 
Olympus to die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine. He lies veiy 
well where he is. The Jerseys were handsome ground enough 
for Washington to tread, and London streets for the feet of 
Milton. A great man makes his climate genial in the imagi- 
nation of men, and its air the beloved element of all delicate 
spirits. That country is the fairest which is inhabited by the 

20. Blne-Ziaws. An excessively severe puritanical code tradi- 
tionally (but fictitiously) attributed to the early Connecticut 
colonies; hence, rigid laws of conduct in general. 

21. Epamlnondas. A Greek general, slain at the battle of 
Mantinea, 362 b.c. 



392 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

noblest minds. The pictures which fill the imagination in 
reading the actions of Pericles, Xenophon, Columbus, Bay- 
ard,22 Sidnej^, Hampden,^^ teach us how needlessly mean our 
life is ; that we, by the depth of our living, should deck it with 
more than regal or national splendor, and act on principles 
that should interest man and nature in the length of our days. 
We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men 
who never ripened,^^ or whose performance in actual life 
was not extraordinary. When we see their air and mien, 
when we hear them speak of society, of books, of religion, 
we admire their superiority; they seem to throw contempt 
on our entire polity and social state; theirs is the tone of a 
youthful giant who is sent to work revolutions. But they 
enter an active profession and the forming Colossus^^ shrinks 
to the common size of man. The magic they used was the 
ideal tendencies, which always make the Actual ridiculous; 
but the tough world had its revenge the moment they put their 
horses of the sun to plow in its furrow. They found no 
example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What 
then? The lesson they gave in their first aspirations is yet 
true ; and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organ- 
ize their belief. Or why should a woman liken herself to 
any historical woman, and think, because Sappho, or 
Sevigne, or De Stael,^^ or the cloistered souls who have had 
genius and cultivation, do not satisfy the imagination and the 
serene Themis,^^ none can, — certainly not she? Why not? 
She has a new and unattempted problem to solve, perchance 

22. Bayard. A French knigrht of the early sixteenth century, 
said to have lived sans peur et sans reproche. 

23. Sidney, Hampden. See note on pag-e 196. But Emerson may 
refer to Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586). 

24. men wlio ne'T'er ripened. Compare the observations of 
Bacon, in his essay on Youth and Age, pag-e 45. 

25. formlnfiT Colossus. Form apparently destined to be gigantic. 

26. Sapplio, etc. Sappho was a Greek poetess; Madame de 
Sevigne and Madame de Stael were brilliant Frenchwomen of 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries respectively. 

27. ThemlS'. The Greek goddess of law and order. 



EMERSON 393 

that of the happiest nature that ever bloomed. Let the 

maiden, with erect Soul, walk serenely on her way, accept the 

hint of each new experience, search in turn all the objects 

that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the 

charm of her new-born being, which is the kindling of a new 

dawn in the recesses of space. The fair girl who repels inter- 

j ference by a decided and proud choice of influences, so care- 

, less of pleasing, so wilful and lofty, inspires every beholder 

j with somewhat of her own nobleness. The silent heart encour- 

i ages her ; friend, never strike sail to a fear ! Come into 

' port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you live, 

j for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision. 

I The characteristic of heroism is its persistency. All men 

have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But 

when you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not 

i weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic 

cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic. Yet we 

have the weakness to expect the sympathy of people in those 

actions whose excellence is that they outrun sympathy and 

appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve your brother, 

because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your 

words when you find that prudent people do not commend 

you. Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if 

you have done something strange and extravagant and broken 

the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high counseP^ that 

I once heard given to a young person, — "Always do what you 

are afraid to do." A simple manly character need never 

make an apology, but should regard its past action with the 

calmness of Phocion,^^ when he admitted that the event of 

the battle was happy, yet did not regret his dissuasion from 

the battle. 

28. a Mgrb. cotmsel. Given to Emerson by his "brilliant, lov- 
ing", and eccentric aunt," Mary Moody Emerson. 

29. Pliocion, An Athenian general who died nobly after being 
falsely charg^ed with treason, because of his opposition to the 
war with Macedonia; he left the admonition for his son, "to 
bear no grudg^e against the Athenians." 



394 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find 
consolation in the thought — this is a part of my constitution, 
part of my relation and office to my fellow-creature. Has 
nature covenanted mth me that I should never appear to dis- 
advantage, never make a ridiculous figure? Let us be gener- 
ous of our dignity as well as of our money. Greatness once 
and for ever has done with opinion. We tell our charities, 
not because w^e wish to be praised for them, not because we 
think they have great merit, but for our justification. It is a 
capital blunder; as you discover when another man recites 
his charities. 

To speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with 
some rigor of temperance, or some extremes of generosity, 
seems to be an asceticism which common good-nature would 
appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty, in sign that 
they feel a brotherhood with the great multitude of suffering 
men. And not only need we breathe and exercise the soul 
by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of solitude, 
of unpopularity, — ^but it behooves the wise man to look with 
a bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade 
men, and to familiarize himself with disgusting forms of dis- 
ease, with sounds of execration, and the vision of violent 
death. 

Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the 
day never shines in which this element may not work. The 
circumstances of man, we say, are historically somewhat better 
in this country and at this hour than perhaps ever before. 
More freedom exists for culture. It will not now run against 
an axe at the first step out of the beaten track of opinion. 
But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge. 
Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the 
trial of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day 
that the brave Lovejoy^^ gave his breast to the bullets of a 

30. lovejoy. A Presbyterian minister who was mobbed and 
shot in 1837 because of liis activity in the anti-slavery move- 
ment. 



EMERSON 395 

mob, for the rights of free speech and opinion, and died 
when it was better not to live. 

I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk, 
but after the counsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too 
much association, let him go home much, and stablish himself 
in those courses he approves. The unremitting retention of 
simple and high sentiments in obscure duties is hardening the 
character to that temper which will work with honor, if need 
be in the tumult, or on the scaffold. Whatever outrages have 
happened to men may befall a man again; and very easily in 
a republic, if there appear any signs of a decay of religion. 
Coarse slander, fire, tar and feathers and the gibbet, the youth 
may freely bring home to his mind and with what sweetness 
of temper he can, and inquire how fast he can fix his sense 
of duty, braving such penalties, whenever it may please the 
next newspaper and a sufficient number of his neighbors to 
pronounce his opinions incendiary. 

It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most 
susceptible heart to see how quick a bound Nature has set 
to the utmost infliction of malice. We rapidly approach a 
brink over which no enemy can follow us: — 

Let them rave; 
Thou art quiet in thy grave. 3i 

In the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour 
when we are deaf to the higher voices, who does not envy 
those who have seen safely to an end their manful endeavor? 
Who that sees the meanness of our politics but inly congratu- 
lates Washington that he is long already wrapped in his 
shroud, and for ever safe; that he was laid sweet in his 
grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him? Who 
does not sometimes envy the good and brave who are no more 
to suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await 



31. Let them rave. The refrain of Tennyson's poem called 
'A Dirge," though the second line is not his. 



396 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

with curious complacency the speedy term^^ Qf j^^g Q^yj^ conver- 
sation with finite nature? And yet the love that will be 
annihilated sooner than treacherous has already made death 
impossible, and affirms itself no mortal but a native of the 
deeps of absolute and inextinguishable being. 

CHARACTERi 

I have read that those who listened to Lord Chatham^ felt 
that there was something finer in the man than anything 
which he said. It has been complained of our brilliant Eng- 
lish historian of the French Revolution that when he has told 
all his facts about Mirabeau, they do not justify his estimate 
of his genius. The Gracchi, Agis, Cleomenes, and others of 
Plutarch^s heroes, do not in the record of facts equal their 
own fame. Sir Philip Sidney, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter 
Raleigh, are men of great figure and of few deeds. We cannot 
find the smallest part of the personal weight of Washington in 
the narrative of his exploits. The authority of the name of 
Schiller is too great for his books. This inequality of the 
reputation to the works or the anecdotes is not accounted for 
by saying that the reverberation is longer than the thunder- 
clap, but somewhat resided in these men which begot an 
expectation that outran all their performance. The largest 
part of their power was latent. This is that which we call 
Character, — a reserved force, which acts directly by presence 
and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemon- 
strable force, a Familiar or Genius, by whose impulses the man 
is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart; which is com- 
pany for him, so that such men are often solitary, or if they 
chance to be social, do not need society but can entertain 
themselves very well alone. The purest literary talent appears 



32. term. End. 

1. This essay is partly based on a lecture in a course called 
"The Times" (1841-2). 

2. Lord Cliatliam. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778). 



EMERSON 397 

at one time great, at another time small, but character is of a 
stellar and undiminishable greatness. What others effect by 
talent or by eloquence, this man accomplishes by some magnet- 
ism. "Half his strength he put not forth."^ His victories 
are by demonstration of superiority, and not by crossing of 
bayonets. He conquers because his arrival alters the face of 
affairs. "0 lole! how did you know that Hercules was a 
god T'^ "Because," answered lole, "I was content the moment 
my eyes fell on him. When I beheld Theseus, I desired that 
I might see him offer battle, or at least guide his horses in the 
chariot-race; but Hercules did not wait for a contest; he 
conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat, or whatever 
thing he did.'' Man, ordinarily a pendant to events, only 
half attached, and that awkwardly, to the world he lives in, 
in these examples appears to share the life of things, and to 
be an expression of the same laws which control the tides and 
the sun, numbers and quantities. 

But to use a more modest illustration and nearer home, I 
observe that in our political elections, where this element, 
if it appears at all, can only occur in its coarsest form, we 
sufficiently understand its incomparable rate. The people 
know that they need in their representative much more than 
talent, namely the power to make his talent trusted. They 
cannot come at their ends by sending to Congress a learned, 
acute, and fluent speaker,^ if he be not one who, before he was 
appointed by the people to represent them, was appointed by 
Almighty God to stand for a fact, — invincibly persuaded of 
that fact in himself, — so that the most confident and the most 
violent persons learn that here is resistance on which both 
impudence and terror are wasted, namely faith in a fact. The 
men who carry their points do not need to inquire of their 

3. Half Ms strengi;li, etc. From Paradise Lost, Book VI. 

4. O lole! etc. In Greek leg-end lole was a daughter of 
King" Eurytus, whom Hercules took captive on slaying her father. 

5. flnent speaker. This passage probably alludes to Daniel 
Webster, then Senator from Massachusetts. 



398 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

constituents what they should say, but are themselves the 
country which they represent; nowhere are its emotions or 
opinions so instant and true as in them; nowhere so pure 
from a selfish infusion. The constituency at home hearkens to 
their words, watches the color of their cheek, and therein, as 
in a glass, dresses its own. Our public assemblies are pretty 
good tests of manly force. Our frank countrymen of the 
west and south have a taste for character, and like to know 
whether the New Englander is a substantial man, or whether 
the hand can pass through him. 

The same motive force appears in trade. There are geniuses 
in trade, as well as in v/ar, or the state, or letters: and the 
reason why this or that man is fortunate is not to be told. 
It lies in the man; that is all anybody can tell you about it. 
See him and you will know as easily why he succeeds, as, if 
you see Napoleon, you would comprehend his fortune. In 
the new objects we recognize the old game, the habit of front- 
ing the fact, and not dealing with it at second hand, through 
the perceptions of somebody else. Nature seems to authorize 
trade, as soon as you see the natural merchant,^ who appears 
not so much a private agent as her factor and Minister of 
Commerce. His natural probity combines with his insight 
into the fabric of society to put him above tricks, and he 
communicates to all his own faith that contracts are of no 
private interpretation. The habit of his mind is a reference 
to standards of natural equity and public advantage; and he 
inspires respect and the wish to deal vdth him, both for the 
quiet spirit of honor which attends him, and for the intellectual 
pastime which the spectacle of so much ability affords. This 
immensely stretched trade, which makes the capes of the 
Southern Ocean his wharves and the Atlantic Sea his familiar 
rort, renters in his brain only; and nobody in the universe 
can make his place good. In his parlor I see very well that 

g. til© natural snercliaiit. This passag-e is supposed to be a 
sketch of Abei Adams, a Boston merchant and friend of Emer- 



EMERSON 399 

he has been at hard work this morning, with that knitted brow 
and that settled humor, which all his desire to be courteous 
cannot shake off. I see plainly how many firm acts have been 
done; how many valiant noes have this day been spoken, when 
others would have uttered ruinous yeas. I see, with the pride 
of art and skill of masterly arithmetic and power of remote 
combination, the consciousness of being an agent and play- 
fellow of the original laws of the world. He too believes that 
none can supply him, and that a man must be bom to trade 
or he cannot learn it. 

This virtue draws the mind more when it appears in action 
to ends not so mixed. It works with most energy in the 
smallest companies and in private relations. In all cases it is an 
extraordinary and incomputable agent. The excess of physical 
strength is paralyzed by it. Higher natures overpower lower 
ones by affecting them with a certain sleep. The faculties are 
locked up, and offer no resistance. Perhaps that is the uni- 
versal law. When the high cannot bring up the low to itself, 
it benumbs it, as man charms down the resistance of the lower 
animals. Men exert on each other a similar occult power. 
How often has the influence of a true master realized all the 
tales of magic! A river of command seemed to run down 
from his eyes into all those who beheld him, a torrent of 
strong sad light, like an Ohio or Danube, which pervaded them 
wdth his thoughts and colored all events with the hue of his 
mind. "What means did you employ?" was the question 
asked of the wife of Concini,^ in regard to her treatment of 
Mary of Medici; and the answer was, "Only that influence 
which every strong mind has over a weak one." Cannot 
Cassar in irons shuffle off the irons and transfer them to the 
person of Hippo or Thraso^ the turnkey? Is an iron hand- 
cuff so immutable a bond? Suppose a slaver on the coast of 

7. wife of Conclni. The Marchioness of Ancre, who was exe- 
cuted as a witch because of her power over the mind of Marie 
de Medici, wife of Henry IV of France. 

8. Hippo or Tliraso. Type-names for slaves in ancient comedy. 



400 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Guinea should take on board a gang of negroes which should 
contain persons of the stamp of Toussaint L'Ouverture:^ or, 
let us fancy, under these swarthy masks he has a gang of 
Washingtons in chains. When they arrive at Cuba, will the 
relative order of the ship's company be the same? Is there 
nothing but rope and iron? Is there no love, no reverence? 
Is there never a glimpse of right in a poor slave-captain's 
mind; and cannot these be supposed available to break or 
elude or in any manner over-match the tension of an inch or 
two of iron ring? 

This is a natural power, like light and heat, and all nature 
cooperates with it. The reason why we feel one man's presence 
and do not feel another's is as simple as gravity. Truth is 
the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs. 
All individual natures stand in a scale, according to the purity 
of this element in them. The will of the pure runs down 
from them into other natures, as water runs down from a 
higher into a lower vessel. This natural force is no more to 
be withstood than any other natural force. We can drive a 
stone upward for a moment into the air, but it is yet true 
that all stones will forever fall; and whatever instances can 
be quoted of unpunished theft, or of a lie which somebody 
credited, justice must prevail, and it is the privilege of truth 
to make itself believed. Character is this moral order seen 
through the medium of an individual nature. An individual 
is an encloser. Time and space, liberty and necessity, truth 
and thought, are left at large no longer. Now, the universe 
is a close or pound. All things exist in the man tinged with 
the manners of his soul. With what quality is in him he 
infuses all nature that he can reach ; nor does he tend to lose 
himself in vastness, but, at how long a curve soever, all his 
regards return into his own good at last. He animates all 
he can, and he sees only what he animates. He encloses the 

9. Toussaint L'Ouverture. The negro "Napoleon of Hayti" 
(1743-1803). 



EMERSON 401 

world, as the patriot does his country, as a material basis for 
his character, and a theater for action. A healthy soul stands 
united with the Just and the True, as the magnet arranges 
itself with the pole; so that he stands to all beholders like a 
transparent object betwixt them and the sun, and whoso 
journeys towards the sun, journeys towards that person. He 
is thus the medium of the highest influence to all who are not 
on the same level. Thus men of character are the conscience 
of the society to which they belong. 

The natural measure of this power is the resistance of 
circumstances. Impure men consider life as it is reflected in 
opinions, events, and persons. They cannot see the action until 
it is done. Yet its moral element preexisted in the actor, and 
its quality as right or wrong it was easy to predict. Every- 
thing in nature is bipolar, or has a positive and a negative 
pole. There is a male and a female, a spirit and a fact, a 
north and a south. Spirit is the positive, the event is the 
negative. Will is the north, action the south pole. Character 
may be ranked as having its natural place in the north. It 
shares the magnetic currents of the system. The feeble souls 
are drawn to the south or negative pole. They look at the 
profit or hurt of the action. They never behold a principle 
until it is lodged in a person. They do not wish to be lovely, 
but to be loved. Men of character like to hear of their faults ; 
the other class do not like to hear of faults; they worship 
events; secure to them a fact, a connection, a certain chain 
of circumstances, and they will ask no more. The hero sees 
that the event is ancillary ;i^ it must follow him, A given 
order of events has no power to secure to him the satisfaction 
which the imagination attaches to it; the soul of goodness 
escapes from any set of circumstances; whilst prosperity 
belongs to a certain mind, and will introduce that power and 
victory which is its natural fruit, into any order of events. 
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character. 

10. ancillary. Subordinate (like a servant). 



402 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

AYe boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if 
we have broken any idols it is through a transfer of the idol- 
atry. What have I gained, that I no longer immolate a bull 
to Jove or to Neptune, or a mouse to Hecate ;^^ that I do not 
tremble before the Eumenides/^ or the Catholic Purgatory, 
or the Calvinistic Judgment-day, — if I quake at opinion, the 
public opinion as we call it; or at the threat of assault, or 
contumely, or bad neighbors, or poverty, or mutilation, or at 
the rumor of revolution, or of murder? If I quake, what 
matters it what I quake at? Our proper vice takes form in 
one or another shape, according to the sex, age, or tempera- 
ment of the person, and, if we are capable of fear, will 
readily find terrors. The covetousness or the malignity which 
saddens me when I ascribe it to society, is my own. I am 
always environed by myself. On the other part, rectitude is 
a perpetual victory, celebrated not by cries of joy but by 
serenity, which is joy fixed or habitual. It is disgraceful to 
fly to events for confirmation of our truth and worth. The 
capitalist does not run every hour to the broker to coin his 
advantages into current money of the realm; he is satisfied 
to read in the quotations of the market that his stocks have 
risen. The same transport which the occurrence of the best 
events in the best order would occasion me, I must learn to 
taste purer in the perception that my position is every hour 
meliorated, and does already command those events I desire. 
That exultation is only to be checked by the foresight of an 
order of things so excellent as to throw all our prosperities 
into the deepest shade. 

The face which character wears to me is self-sufficingness. 
I revere the person who is riches; so that I cannot think 
of him as alone, or poor, or exiled, or unhappy, or a client, 
but as perpetual patron, benefactor, and beatified man. Char- 

11. Hecate. Goddess of night, worshipped by wizards. 

12. Eumenides. The Furies of Greek mythology. These, like 
Purgatory and the Day of Judgment, Emerson treats as symbols 
of the exaggeration of fear in religion. 



;emerson 403 

acter is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or 
overset. A man should give us a sense of mass. Society is 
frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into 
ceremonies and escapes. But if I go to see an ingenious man 
I shall think myself poorly entertained if he give me nimble 
pieces of benevolence and etiquette; rather he shall stand 
stoutly in his place and let me apprehend, if it were only his 
resistance; know that I have encountered a new and positive 
quality; — great refreshment for both of us. It is much that 
he does not accept the conventional opinions and practices. 
That non-conformity will remain a goad and remembrancer, 
and every inquirer will have to dispose of him, in the first 
place. There is nothing real or useful that is not a seat of 
war. Our houses ring with laughter and personal and critical 
gossip, but it helps little. But the uncivil, unavailable man, 
who is a problem and a threat to society, whom it cannot let 
pass in silence but must either worship or hate, — and to whom 
all parties feel related, both the leaders of opinion and the 
obscure and eccentric, — he helps ; he puts America and Europe 
in the wrong, and destroys the skepticism which says, ^^Man is 
a doll, let us eat and drink, 't is the best we can do," by illumi- 
nating the untried and unknown. Acquiescence in the estab- 
lishment and appeal to the public, indicate infirm faith, heads 
which are not clear, and which must see a house built before 
they can comprehend the plan of it. The wise man not only 
leaves out of his thought the many, but leaves out the few. 
Fountains,^^ the self-moved, the absorbed, the commander 
because he is commanded, the assured, the primary, — they 
are good; for these announce the instant presence of supreme 
power. 

Our action should rest mathematically on our substance. 
In nature there are no false valuations. A pound of water 
in the ocean-tempest has no more gravity than in a mid- 
13. Fountains. Men of inner power; "conductors of the water 
of life." 



404 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

summer pond. All things work exactly according to their 
quality and according to their quantity; attempt nothing they 
cannot do^ except man only. He has pretension; he wishes 
and attempts things beyond his force. I read in a book of 
English memoirs, ^^Mr. Fox^^ (aftei^wards Lord Holland) said, 
he must have the Treasury; he had served up to it and 
would have it." Xenophon^^ and his Ten Thousand were 
quite equal to what they attempted, and did it; so equal, 
that it was not suspected to be a grand and inimitable exploit. 
Yet there stands that fact unrepeated, a high-water mark in 
military history. Many have attempted it since, and not been 
equal to it. It is only on reality that any power of action can 
be based. No institution will be better than the institutor. 
I knew an amiable and accomplished person^^ who undertook 
a practical reform, yet I was never able to find in him the 
enterprise of love he took in hand. He adopted it by ear and 
by the understanding from the books he had been reading. 
All his action was tentative, a piece of the city carried out 
into the fields, and was the city still, and no new fact, and 
could not inspire enthusiasm. Had there been something 
latent in the man, a terrible un demonstrated genius agitating 
and embarrassing his demeanor, we had watched^*^ for its 
advent. It is not enough that the intellect should see the 
evils and their remedy. We shall still postpone our existence, 
nor take the ground to which we are entitled, whilst it is only 
a thought and not a spirit that incites us. We have not yet 
served up to it. 

These are properties of life, and another trait is the notice 
of incessant growth. Men should be intelligent and earnest. 



14. Ton, A British politician (1773-1840). 

15. Xeiioplion. Leader of the Greek force called "the Ten 
Thousand," from Cunaxa to the Black Sea (401 b.c); the expedi- 
tion was described in his work called The Anabasis. 

16. accompliElied person. George Ripley, founder of the philo- 
sophic community at Brook Farm (see note on page 434, below). 

17. liad watclied. Should have watched. 



\ 



EMERSON 405 

They must also make us feel that they have a controlling 
happy future opening before them, whose early twilights 
already kindle in the passing hour. The hero is misconceived 
and misreported; he cannot therefore wait to unravel any 
man's blunders; he is again on his road, adding new powers 
and honors to his domain and new claims on your heart, Avhich 
will bankrupt you if you have loitered about the old things 
and have not kept your relation to him by adding to your 
wealth. New actions are the only apologies and explanations 
of old ones which the noble can bear to o:^er or to receive. 
If your friend has displeased you, you shall not sit down to 
consider it, for he has already lost all memory of the passage, 
and has doubled his power to serve you, and ere you can rise 
up again will burden you with blessings. 

We have no pleasure in thinking of a benevolence that is 
only measured by its works. Love is inexhaustible, and if 
its estate is wasted, its granary emptied, still cheers and 
enriches, and the man, though he sleep, seems to purify the 
air and his house to adorn the landscape and strengthen the 
laws. People always recognize this difference. We know 
who is benevolent, by quite other means than the amount of 
subscription to soup-societies. It is only low merits that can 
be enumerated. Fear, when your friends say to you what 
you have done well, and say it through; but when they stand 
with uncertain timid looks of respect and half-dislike, and 
must suspend their judgment for years to come, you may 
begin to hope. Those who live to the future must always 
appear selfish to those who live to the present. Therefore it 
was droll in the good Riemer, who has written memoirs of 
Goethe, to make out a list of his donations and good deeds, 
as, so many hundred thalers given to Stilling, to Hegel, to 
Tischbein; a lucrative place found for Professor Voss, a post 
under the Grand Duke for Herder, a pension for Meyer, two 
professors recommended to foreign universities ; etc., etc. The 
longest list of specifications of benefit would look very short. 



406 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

A man is a poor creature if lie is to be measured so. For all 
these of course are exceptions, and the rule and hodiurnal life 
of a good man is benefaction. The true charity of Goethe is 
to be inferred from the account he gave Dr. Eckermann of 
the way in which he had spent his fortune. ^^Each hon mot 
of mine has cost a purse of gold. Half a million of my own 
money, the fortune I inherited, my salary, and the large income , 
derived from my writings for fifty years back, have been t 
expended to instruct me in what I now know. I have besides 
seen,'' etc. 

I own it is but poor chat and gossip to go to enumerate 
traits of this simple and rapid power, and we are painting 
the lightning with charcoal; but in these long nights and 
vacations I like to console myself so. Nothing but itself can 
copy it. A word warm from the heart enriches me. I sur- 
render at discretion. How death-cold is literary genius before 
this fire of life! These are the touches that reanimate my 
heavy soul and give it eyes to pierce the dark of nature. I 
find, where I thought myself poor, there was I most rich. 
Thence comes a new intellectual exaltation, to be again rebuked 
by some new exhibition of character. Strange alternation of 
attraction and repulsion ! Character repudiates intellect, yet 
excites it; and character passes into thought, is published so, 
and then is ashamed before new flashes of moral worth. 

Character is nature in the highest form. It is of no use to | 
ape it or to contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resist- 
ance, and of persistence, and of creation, to this power, which 
will foil all emulation. 

This masterpiece is best where no hands but nature's have 
been laid on it. Care is taken that the greatly-destined shall i 
slip up into life in the shade, with no thousand-eyed Athens 
to watch and blazon every new thought, every blushing emo- 
tion of young genius. Two persons lately, very young children 
of the most high God, have given me occasion for thought. 
Wiien I explored the source of their sanctity and charm for 



EMERSON 407 

the imagination, it seemed as if each answered, "From my 
non-conformity; I never listened to your people's law, or to 
what they call their gospel, and wasted my time. I was con- 
tent with the simple rural poverty of my own; hence this 
sweetness; my work never reminds you of that, — is pure of 
that." And nature advertises me in such persons that in demo- 
cratic America she will not be democratized. How cloistered 
and constitutionally sequestered from the market and from 
scandal! It was only this morning that I sent away some 
wild flowers of these wood-gods. They are a relief from 
literature, — these fresh draughts from the sources of thought 
and sentiment; as we read, in an age of polish and criticism, 
the first lines of written prose and verse of a nation. How 
captivating is their devotion to their favorite books, whether 
^schylus, Dante, Shakespeare, or Scott, as feeling that they 
have a stake in that book; who touches that, touches them, — 
and especially the total solitude of the critic, the Patmos of 
thought^ ^ from which he writes, in unconsciousness of any. 
eyes that shall ever read this writing. Could they dream on 
still, as angels, and not wake to comparisons and to be flattered ! 
Yet some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise, and 
w^ierever the vein of thought reaches down into the profound, 
there is no danger from vanity. Solemn friends will warn 
them of the danger of the head's being turned by the flourish 
of trumpets, but they can afford to smile. I remember the 
indignation of an eloquent Methodist^^ at the kind admonitions 
of a Doctor of Divinity, — "My friend, a man can neither be 
praised nor insulted." But forgive the counsels ; they are very 
natural. I remember the thought which occurred to me when 
some ingenious and spiritual foreigners'^ came to America, 



18. Fatmos of tlioug*ht. See Revelation 1:9. 

19. eloquent Metliodist. Rev. Edward Taylor, of the Sailors* 
Mission in Boston. 

20. spiritual foreigners. Two Englishmen, named Lane and 
Wright, who came to America in 1842 in the interest of plans 
for a new type of social community. 



408 EvSSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

was, Have you been victimized in being brought hither? — 
or, prior to that, answer me this, "Are you victimizable?'' 

As I have said, Nature keeps these sovereignties in her 
own hands, and however pertly our sermons and disciplines 
would divide some share of credit, and teach that the laws 
fashion the citizen, she goes her own gait and puts the wisest 
in the wrong. She makes very light of gospels and prophets, 
as one who has a great many more to produce and no excess of 
time to spare on any one. There is a class of men, individu- 
als of which appear at long intervals, so eminently endowed 
with insight and virtue that they have been unanimously 
saluted as divine, and who seem to be an accumulation of 
that power we consider. Divine persons are character born, 
or, to borrow a phrase from Napoleon, they are victory organ- 
ized. They are usually received with ill-will, because they 
are new and because they set a bound to the exaggeration 
that has been made of the personality of the last divine per- 
son. Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men 
alike. When we see a great man we fancy a resemblance to 
some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character 
and fortune; a result which he is sure to disappoint. None 
will ever solve the problem of his character according to our 
prejudice, but only in his own high unprecedented way. Char- 
acter wants room; must not be crowded on by persons nor 
be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs or on few 
occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building. It may 
not, probably does not, form relations rapidly ; and we should 
not require rash explanation, either on the popular ethics, or 
on our own, of its action. 

I look on Sculpture as history. I do not think the Apollo 
and the Jove impossible in flesh and blood. Every trait which 
the artist recorded in stone he had seen in life, and better 
than his copy. We have seen many counterfeits, but we are 
born believers in great men. How easily we read in old books, 
when men were few, of the smallest action of the patriarchs. 



EMERSON 409 

We require that a man should be so large and columnar in the 
landscape, that it should deserve to be recorded that he arose^ 
and girded up his loins, and departed to such a place. The 
most credible pictures are those of majestic men who pre- 
vailed at their entrance, and convinced the senses; as hap- 
pened to the eastern magian^^ who was sent to test the merits 
of Zertusht or Zoroaster. ^^When the Yunani sage arrived at 
Balkh, the Persians tell us, Gushtasp appointed a day on 
which the Mobebs of every country should assemble, and a 
golden chair was placed for the Yunani sage. Then the 
beloved of Yezdam, the prophet Zertusht, advanced into the 
midst of the assembly. The Yunani sage, on seeing that chief, 
said, ^This form and this gait cannot lie, and nothing but 
truth can proceed from them.^ " Plato said it was impossible 
not to believe in the children of the gods, "though they should 
speak without probable or necessary arguments.'^ I should 
think myself very unhappy in my associates if I could not 
credit the best things in history. "John Bradshaw,"^^ says 
Milton, "appears like a consul, from whom the fasces^^ are 
not to depart with the year; so that not on the tribunal only, 
but throughout his life, you would regard him as sitting in 
judgment upon king's.'' I find it more credible, since it is 
anterior information, that one man should know heaven^ as 
the Chinese say, than that so many men should know the 
world. "The virtuous prince confronts the gods, without any 
misgiving. He waits a hundred ages till a sage comes, and 
does not doubt. He who confronts the gods, without any 
misgiving, knows heaven; he who waits a hundred ages until 
a sage comes, without doubting, knows men. Hence the virtu- 
ous prince moves, and for ages shows empire the way." But 



21. magian. Priest of Persia. The anecdote is quoted from 
the Desatir, one of the sacred books of Persia. 

22'. Bradsliaw. An English judge, one of the "regicides" con- 
nected with the execution of Charles I. 

23. fasces. The rods and axe that symbolized the magistracy 
at Rome. 



410 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

there is no need to seek remote examples. He is a dull 
observer whose experience has not taught him the reality and 
force of magic, as well as of chemistry. The coldest precisian 
cannot go abroad without encountering inexplicable influences. 
One man fastens an eye on him and the graves of the memory 
render up their dead; the secrets that make him wretched 
either to keep or to betray must be yielded; — another, and he 
cannot speak, and the bones of his body seem to lose their 
cartilages; the entrance of a friend adds grace, boldness, and 
eloquence to him; and there are persons he cannot choose but 
remember, who gave a transcendent expansion to his thought, 
and kindled another life in his bosom. 

What is so excellent as strict relations of amity, when they 
spring from this deep root? The sufficient reply to the 
skeptic who doubts the power and the furniture^^ of man, is 
in that possibility of joyful intercourse with persons, which 
makes the faith and practice of all reasonable men. I know 
nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound 
good understanding which can subsist, after much exchange 
of good offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is 
sure of himself and sure of his friend. It is a happiness 
which postpones all other gratifications, and makes politics, 
and commerce, and churches cheap. For when men shall 
meet as they ought, each a benefactor, a shower of stars, 
clothed with thoughts, with deeds, with accomplishments, it 
should be the festival of nature which all things announce. 
Of such friendship, love in the sexes is the first symbol, as 
all other things are symbols of love. Those relations to the 
best men, which, at one time, we reckoned the romances of 
youth, become, in the progress of the character, the most solid 
enjoyment. 

If it were possible to live in right relations with men! — if 
we could abstain from asking anything of them, from asking 
their praise, or help, or pity, and content us with compelling 

24. furniture. Equipment. 



EMERSON 411 

them through the virtue of the eldest laws! Could we not 
deal with a few persons^ — with one person, — after the unwrit- 
ten statutes, and make an experiment of their efficacy ? Could 
we not pay our friend the compliment of truth, of silence, of 
lorbearing? Xeed we be so eager to" seek him? If we are 
related, we shall meet. It was a tradition of the ancient world 
that no metamor23hosis2^ could hide a god from a god; and 
there is a Greek verse which runs, — 

The gods are to each other not unknown. 26 

Friends also follow the laws of divine necessity; they gravi- 
tate to each other, and cannot otherwise : — 

When each the other shall avoid, 

Shall each by each be most enjoyed. 27 

Their relation is not made, but allowed. The gods must seat 
themselves Vv^ithout seneschaP^ in our Olympus, and as they 
can instal themselves by seniority divine. Society is spoiled 
if pains are taken, if the associates are brought a mile to 
meet. And if it be not society, it is a mischievous, low, 
degrading jangle, though made up of the best. All the great- 
ness of each is kept back and every foible in painful activity, 
as if the Olympians^^ should meet to exchange snuff-boxes. 

Life goes headlong. We chase some flying scheme, or we 
are hunted by some fear or command behind us. But if 
suddenly we encounter a friend, we pause; our heat and hurry 
look foolish enough; now pause, now possession is required, 
and the power to swell the moment from the resources of the 
heart. The moment is all, in all noble relations. 

A divine person is the prophecy of the mind; a friend is 

25. Metamorpliosis. Change of form. 

26. Tlie §"0(18, etc. From the Odyssey, Book v, 

27. Wlieu each tlie otlier, etc. Fromi Emerson's own poem 
called "Initial, Daemonic, and Celestial Love." 

28. wltliotit senesclial. That is, without the services of one 
who seats persons according- to rank. 

29. Olympians. Gods. 



412 ESSAYS'— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

tlie hope of the heart. Our beatitude waits for the fulfilhnent 
of these two in one. The ages are opening this moral force. 
All force is the shadow or symbol of that. Poetry is joyful 
and strong as it draws its inspiration thence. Men write 
their names on the world as they are filled with this. History 
has been mean; our nations have been mobs; we have never 
seen a man; that divine form we do not yet know, but only 
the dream and prophecy of such: we do not know the majestic 
manners which belong to him, which appease and exalt the 
beholder. We shall one day see that the most private is the 
most public energy, that quality atones for quantity, and 
grandeur of character acts in the dark, and succors them 
who never saw it. What greatness has yet appeared is begin- 
nings and encouragements to us in this direction. The history 
of those gods and saints which the world has written and then 
worshipped, are documents of character. The ages have 
exulted in the manners of a youth who owed nothing to 
fortune, and who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation,^^ 
who, by the pure quality of his nature, shed an epic splendor 
around the facts of his death which has transfigured every 
particular into an universal symbol for the eyes of mankind. 
This great defeat is hitherto our highest fact. But the mind 
requires a victory to the senses; a force of character which 
will convert judge, jury, soldier, and king; which will rule 
animal and mineral virtues, and blend with the courses of 
sap, of rivers, of winds, of stars, and of moral agents. 

If we cannot attain at a bound to these grandeurs, at 
least let us do them homage. In society, high advantages are 
set down to the possessor as disadvantages. It requires the 
more wariness in our private estimates. I do not forgive in 
my friends the failure to know a fine character and to enter- 
tain it with thankful hospitality. When at last that which 
we have always longed for is arrived and shines on us with 

30. Ty"bun3 of his nation. For Tyburn, see the note on page 
313. Here of course the phrase means Calvary. 



EMEKSON 413 

glad rays out of that far celestial land, then to be coarse, 
then to be critical, and treat such a visitant with the jabber 
and suspicion of the streets, argues a vulgarity that seems to 
shut the doors of heaven. This is confusion, this the right 
insanity, when the soul no longer knows its own, nor where 
its allegiance, its religion, are due. Is there any religion but 
this, to know that wherever in the wide desert of being the holy 
sentiment we cherish has opened into a flower, it blooms for 
me? if none sees it, I see it; I am aware, if I alone, of the 
greatness of the fact. Whilst it blooms, I will keep sabbath 
or holy time, and suspend my gloom and my folly and jokes. 
Nature is indulged by the presence of this guest. There are 
many eyes that can detect and honor the prudent and house- 
hold virtues; there are many that can discern Genius on his 
starry track, though the mob is incapable; but when that love 
which is all-suffering, all-abstaining, all-aspiring, which has 
vowed to itself that it will be a wretch and also a fool in 
this world sooner than soil its white hands by any compli- 
ances, comes into our streets and houses, — only the pure and 
aspiring can know its face, and the only compliment they can 
pay it is to own it. 



GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 

[George William Curtis was born at Providence, Rhode Island, 
in 1824. He early became interested in both social and literary 
movements of the time, and when only eighteen went to live 
for a time at the Brook Farm community founded by some of 
the New England Transcendentalists. He first attained notice 
as a writer by books of travel reporting" his journeys in Europe 
and Africa {Nile Notes, etc.). The greater part of his life was 
spent in New York City, where he devoted himself to the higher 
type of journalism and to the betterment of public life. For a 
long time he conducted the "Easy Chair" department of Harper's 
Magazine, and later edited Harper's Weekly during its most influ- 
ential period. He was especially identified with the cause of 
Civil Service reform, to which he devoted no small gifts as a 
public speaker. Curtis published no single volume of outstand- 
ing importance, but his familiar essays in the collections called 
Potiphar Papers and Prue and I (1853, 1856) became classics of a j I 
modest sort. Both his character and style were marked by t 
something of the grace and dignity of a gentleman "of the old 
school." He died in 1892.] 



MY CHATEAUX! 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure-dome decree. 

— Coleridge. 

I am the owner of great estates. Many of them lie in the 
West; but the greater part are in Spain. You may see my 
western possessions any evening at sunset, when their spires 
and battlements flash against the horizon. 

It gives me a feeling of pardonable importance, as a pro- 
prietor, that they are visible, to my eyes at least, from any 
part of the world in which I chance to be. In my long voyage 



1. This is one of the chapters of Prue and 7, which are — in a 
sen?e — J^eparate essays yet are connected by a slender thread of 
vStory, that of the life of a married pair characterized by "plain 
living and high thinking*." 

414 



thi! 



CURTIS 415 

around the Cape of Good Hope to India (the only voyage I 
ever made, when I was a boy and a supercargo), if I fell 
homesick, or sank into a revery of all the pleasant homes I had 
left behind, I had but to wait until sunset, and then, looking 
toward the west, I beheld my clustering pinnacles and towers 
brightly burnished as if to salute and welcome me. 

So in the city, if I get vexed and wearied, and cannot find 
my wonted solace in sallying forth at dinner-time to contem- 
plate the gay world of youth and beauty hurrying to the 
congress of fashion, — or if I observe that years are deepening 
their tracks around the eyes of my wife, Prue, I go quietly 
up to the housetop, toward evening, and refresh myself with 
a distant prospect of my estates. It is as dear to me as 
that of Eton to the poet Gray;^ and, if I sometimes wonder 
at such moments whether I shall find those realms as fair as 
they appear, I am suddenly reminded that the night air may 
be noxious, and descending, I enter the little parlor where 
Prue sits stitching, and surprise that precious woman by 
exclaiming with the poet's pensive enthusiasm: 

Thought would destroy their Paradise, 
No more; — ^where ignorance is bliss, 
. 'Tis folly to be wise. 

Columbus, also, had possessions in the West; and as I read 
aloud the romantic story of his life, my voice quivers when I 
come to the point in which it is related that sweet odors of 
the land mingled with the sea-air, as the admiral's fleet 
approached the shores ; that tropical birds flew out and fluttered 
around the ships, glittering in the sun, gorgeous promises of 
the new country; that boughs, perhaps with blossoms not all 
decayed, floated out to welcome the strange wood from which 
the craft were hollowed. Then I cannot restrain myself. I 
think of the gorgeous visions I have seen before I have even 

2. Eton . . . Gray. The poet Gray, author of the Elegy, had 
been a student at Eton, and wrote an ode "On a Distant Prospect 
of Eton" viewed from his home near Stoke Pogis. It is from 
this poem that the quotation a few lines below is taken. 



416 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

undertaken the journey to the West, and I cry aloud to Prue: 

^'What sun-bright birds and gorgeous blossoms and celestial 
odors will float out to us, my Prue, as we approach our western 
possessions V' 

The placid Prue raises her eyes to mine with a reproof so 
delicate that it could not be trusted to words; and after a 
moment she resumes her knitting, and I proceed. 

These are my western estates, but my finest castles are in 
Spain. It is a countiy famously romantic, and my castles 
are all of perfect proportions and appropriately set in the 
most picturesque situations. I have never been to Spain 
myself, but I have naturally conversed much with travelers 
to that country; although, I must allow, without deriving 
from them much substantial information about my property 
there. The wisest of them told me that there were more holders ^ 
of real estate in Spain than in any other region he had ever 
heard of, and they are all great proprietors. Every one of 
them possesses a multitude of the stateliest castles. From 
conversation with them you easily gather that each one con- 
siders his own castles much the largest and in the loveliest 
positions. And, after I had heard this said, I verified it by 
discovering that all my immediate neighbors in the city were 
great Spanish proprietors. 

One day as I raised my head from entering some long and 
tedious accounts in my books, and began to reflect that the 
quarter was expiring, and that I must begin to prepare the 
balance-sheet, I observed my subordinate, in office but not in 
years (for poor old Titbottom will never see sixty again!), 
leaning on his hand, and much abstracted. 

"Are you not well, Titbottom?" asked I. 

"Perfectly, but I was just building a castle in Spain,'^ 
said he. 

I looked at his rusty coat, his faded hands, his sad eyes, 
and white hair, for a moment, in great surprise, and then 
inquired : 



CURTIS 417 

"Is it possible that you own property there too?" 

He shook his head silently; and, still leaning on his hand, 
and with an expression in his eye as if he were looking upon 
the most fertile estate of Andalusia,^ he went on making his 
plans; laying out his gardens, I suppose, building terraces 
for the vines, determining a library with a southern exposure, 
and resolving which should be the tapestried chamber. 

"What a singular whim,'^ thought I, as I watched Titbottom 
and filled up a check for four hundred dollars, my quarterly 
salary, "that a man who owns castles in Spain should be 
deputy book-keeper at nine hundred dollars a year !" 

When I went home I ate my dinner silently, and afterward 
sat for a long time upon the roof of the house, looking at 
my western property, and thinking of Titbottom. 

It is remarkable that none of the proprietors have ever 
been to Spain to take possession and report to the rest of us 
the state of our property there. I, of course, cannot go; 
I am too much engaged. So is Titbottom. And I find 
it is the case with all the proprietors. We have so much to 
detain us at home that we cannot get away. But it is always 
so with rich men. Prue sighed once as she sat at the window 
and saw Bourne, the millionaire, the president of innumer- 
able companies, and manager and director of all the charitable 
societies in town, going by with wrinkled brow and hurried 
step. I asked her why she sighed. 

"Because I was remembering that my mother used to tell 
me not to desire great riches, for they occasioned great cares,^^ 
said she. 

"They do indeed,'' answered I, with emphasis, remembering 
Titbottom^ and the impossibility of looking after my Spanish 
(estates. 

Prue turned and looked at me with mild surprise; but I 
1 saw that her mind had gone down the street with Bourne. 
I could never discover if he held much Spanish stock. But I 

3. Andalusia. A district of southern Spain. 



418 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

think he does. All the Spanish proprietors have a certain 
expression. Bourne has it to a remarkable degree. It is a 
kind of look, as if — in fact, as if a man's mind were in Spain. 
Bourne was an old lover of Prue's, and he is not married, 
which is strange for a man in his position. 

It is not easy for me to say how I know so much, as I 
certainly do, about my castles in Spain. The sun always 
shines upon them. They stand lofty and fair in a luminous, 
golden atmosphere, a little hazy and dreamy, perhaps, like 
the Indian summer, but in which no gales blow and there are 
no tempests. All the lofty mountains, and beautiful val- 
leys, and soft landscape, that I have not yet seen, are to be 
found in the grounds. They command a noble view of the 
Alps; so fine, indeed, that I should be quite content with the 
prospect of them from the highest tower of my castle, and 
not care to go to Switzerland. 

The neighboring ruins, too, are as picturesque as those of 
Italy, and my desire of standing in the Coliseum,^ and of 
seeing the shattered arches of the Aqueducts stretching along 
the Campagna^ and melting into the Alban Mount, is entirely 
quenched. The rich gloom of my orange groves is gilded by 
fruit as brilliant of complexion and exquisite of flavor as 
^ny that ever dark-eyed Sorrento^ girls, looking over the high 
plastered walls of southern Italy, hand to the youthful travel- 
ers, climbing on donkeys up the narrow lane beneath. 

The Nile flows through my grounds. The desert lies upon 
their edge, and Damascus stands in my garden. I am given 
to understand, also, that the Parthenon''' has been removed 
to my Spanish possessions. The Golden Horn^ is my fish- 

4. Colisen2ii. The great ruined Amphitheatre at Rome. 

5. Ca3npag*na. The Italian plain surrounding" Rome and 
extending to the Alban mountains on the southeast. 

6. Sorrento. A favorite town on the Bay of Naples. 

7. Parthenon. The ruined temple of Athena on the Acropolis 
of Athens. 

8. Golden Horn. The harbor of Constantinople, on the Bos- 
porus. 



CURTIS 4ia 

preserve; my flocks of golden fleece are pastured on the plain 
of Marathon,^ and the honey of Hymettus^^ is distilled from 
the flowers that grow in the vale of Enna^^ — all in my Spanish 
domains. 

From the windows of those castles look the beautiful 
women whom I have never seen, whose portraits the poets have 
painted. They wait for me there, and chiefly the fair-haired 
child, lost to my eyes so long ago, now bloomed into an 
impossible beauty. The lights that never shone glance at 
evening in tlie vaulted halls upon banquets that were never 
spread. The bands I have never collected play all night 
long, and enchant the brilliant company that was never assem- 
bled, into silence. 

In the long summer mornings the children that I never 
had, play in the gard-ens that I never planted. I hear their 
sweet voices sounding low and far away, calling, "Father! 
father!'^ I see the lost fair-haired girl, grown now into a 
woman, descending the stately stairs of my castle in Spain, 
stepping out upon the lawn, and playing with those children. 
They bound away together down the garden; but those voices 
linger, this time airily calling, "Mother ! mother P' 

But there is a stranger magic than this in my Spanish 
estates. The lawny slopes on which, when a child, I played, 
in my father's old country place, which was sold when he 
failed, are all there, and not a flower faded, nor a blade of 
grass sere. The green leaves have not fallen from the spring 
woods of half a century ago, and a gorgeous autumn has 
blazed undimmed for fifty years among the trees I remember. 

Chestnuts are not especially sweet to my palate now, but 
those with which I used to prick my fingers w^hen gathering 
them in New Hampshire woods are exquisite as ever to my 
taste, when I think of eating them in Spain. I never ride 

9. Maratlion. A plain in Attica, famed for the great battle 
between Persians and Greeks in 490 b.c. 

10,. Hymettns. A mountain in Attica famed for its honey. 
11. nulla. A town in Sicily, now called Castrogiovanni. 



420 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

horseback now at home; but in Spain, when I think of it, I 
bound over all the fences in the country, bare-backed, upon the 
wildest horses. Sermons I am apt to find a little soporific in 
this country; but in Spain I should listen as reverently as 
ever, for proprietors must set a good example on their estates. 

Plays are insufferable to me here — Prue and I never go. 
Prue, indeed, is not quite sure it is moral; but the theaters 
in my Spanish castles are of a prodigious splendor, and when 
I think of going there, Prue sits in a front box with me — a 
kind of royal box — the good woman, attired in such wise as 
I have never seen her here, while I wear my white w^aistcoat, 
which in Spain has no appearance of mending, but dazzles 
with immortal ne\^Tiess, and is a miraculous fit. 

Yes, and in those castles in Spain, Prue is not the placid, 
breeches-patching helpmate, with whom you are acquainted, 
but her face has a bloom which we both remember, and her 
movement a grace which my Spanish swans emulate, and her 
voice a music sweeter than those that orchestras discourse. 
She is always there what she seemed to me when I fell in 
love with her, many and many years ago. The neighbors 
called her then a nice, capable girl; and certainly she did 
knit and dam with a zeal and success to which my feet and 
my legs have testified for nearly half a century. But she 
could spin a finer web than ever came from cotton, and in its 
subtle meshes my heart was entangled, and there has reposed 
softly and happily ever since. The neighbors declared she 
could make pudding and cake better than any girl of her 
age; but stale bread from Prue's hand was ambrosia to my 
palate. 

"She who makes everything well, even to making neighbors 
speak well of her, will surely make a good wife,'' said I to 
myself, when I knew her; and the echo of a half century 
answers, "a good wife.'' 

So, when I meditate my Spanish castles, I see Prue in 
them as my heart saw her standing by her father's door. 



CURTIS 421 

"Age cannot wither her."^^ There is a magic in the Spanish 
air that paralyzes Time. He glides by, unnoticed and unnotic- 
ing. I greatly admire the Alps, which I see so distinctly from 
my Spanish wiadows; I delight in the taste of the southern 
fruit that ripens upon my terraces; I enjoy the pensive shade 
of the Italian ruins in my gardens; I like to shoot crocodiles, 
and talk with the Sphinx upon the shores of the Nile, flowing 
through my domain ; I am glad to drink sherbet in Damascus, 
and fleece my flocks on the plains of Marathon; but I would 
resign all these forever rather than part with that Spanish 
portrait of Prue for a day. Nay, have I not resigned them 
all forever, to live with that portrait's changing original? 

I have often wondered how I should reach my castles. The 
desire of going comes over me very strongly sometimes, and 
I endeavor to see how I <;an arrange my affairs, so as to get 
away. To tell the truth, I am not quite sure of the route, — 
I mean, to that particular part of Spain in which my estates 
lie. I have inquired very particularly, but nobody seems to 
know precisely. One morning I met young Aspen, trembling 
with excitement. 

^^ What's the matter f asked I with interest, for I knew 
that he held a great deal of Spanish stock. 

"Oh!" said he, "I'm going out to take possession. I hate 
found the way to my castles in Spain." 

^'Dear me!" I answered, with the blood streaming into my 
face; and, heedless of Prue, pulling my glove until it ripped 
—"what is itf 

"The direct route is through California," answered he. 

'^But then you have the sea to cross afterward," said I, 
remembering the map. 

*"Not at all," answered Aspen, "the road runs along the 
shore of the Sacramento River." 

He darted away from me, and I did not meet him again. 

12. Afire cannot witlier lier. Said of Cleopatra in Shakespeare's 
Antony & Cleopatra, II, 11. 



422 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

I was very curious to know if he arrived safely in Spain, 
and was expecting every day to hear news from him of my 
property there, w^hen, one evening, I bought an extra, full 
of California news, and the first thing upon which my eye 
fell was this: "Died, in San Francisco, EdAvard Aspen, Esq., 
aged 35." There is a large body of the Spanish stockholders 
ivho believe with Aspen, and sail for California^^ every 
week. I have not yet heard of their arrival out at their 
castles, but I suppose they are so busy with their own affairs 
there, that they have no time to write to the rest of us about 
the condition of our property. 

There was my wife's cousin, too, Jonathan Bud, who is a 
:good, honest youth from the country, and, after a few weeks' 
absence, he burst into the office one day, just as I was bal- 
ancing my books., and v/hispered to me, eagerly: — 

"IVe found my castle in Spain." 

I put the blotting-paper in the leaf deliberately, for I was 
T^iser now than when Aspen had excited me, and looked at 
my wife's cousin, Jonathan Bud, inquiringly. 

"Polly Bacon," whispered he, winking. 

I continued the interrogative glance. 

"She's going to marry me, and she'll show me the way to 
Spain," said Jonathan Bud, hilariously. 

"She'll make you walk Spanish, Jonathan Bud," said I. 

And so she does. He makes no more hilarious remarks. 
He never bursts into a room. He does not ask us to dinner. 
He saj^s that Mrs. Bud does not like smoking. Mrs. Bud has 
nerves and babies. She has a way of saying, "Mr. Bud !" 
which destroys conversation, and casts a gloom upon society. 

It occurred to me that Bourne, the millionaire, must have i 
ascertained the safest and most expeditious route to Spain; 
so I stole a few minutes one afternoon and went into his 
office. He was sitting at his desk, writing rapidly, and sur- 

13.. sail for California. This was written when the "grold 
fever" of 1849 was still ra&ingr. 



CURTIS 423 

rounded by files of papers and patterns, specimens, boxes, 
everything that covers the tables of a great merchant. In 
the outer rooms clerks were writing. Upon high shelves over 
their heads were huge chests, covered with dust, dingy with 
age, many of them, and all marked with the name of the 
firm, in large black letters — "Bourne & Dye.'^ They were all 
numbered also with the proper year; some of them with a 
single capital B and dates extending back into the last 
century, when old Bourne made the great fortune, before he 
went into partnership with Dye. Everything was indicative 
of immense and increasing prosperity. 

There were several gentlemen in waiting to converse with 
Bourne (we all call him so, familiarly, down town), and I 
waited until they went out. But others came in. There was 
no pause in the rush. All kinds of inquiries were made and 
answered. At length I stepped up. 

"A moment, please, Mr. Bourne." 

He looked up hastily, wished me good morning, which he 
had done to none of the others, and which courtesy I attrib- 
uted to Spanish sympathy. 

"What is it, sirf^ he asked, blandly, but with wrinkled 
brow. 

"Mr. Bourne, have you any castles in Spain?" said I, 
v/ithout preface. 

He looked at me for a few moments without speaking, and 
without seeming to see me. His brow gradually smoothed, 
and his eyes, apparently looking into the street, were really, 
I have no doubt, feasting upon the Spanish landscape. 

"Too many, too many," said he at length, musingly, shak- 
ing his head, and without addressing me. 

I suppose he felt himself too much extended — as we say 
in Wall Street. He feared, I thought, that he had too much 
impracticable property elsewhere, to own so much in Spain, 
so I asked: — 

"Will you tell me what you consider the shortest and safest 



424 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

route thither, Mr. Bourne? for, of course, a man who drives 
such an immense trade with all parts of the world will know 
all that I have come to inquire/' 

'^My dear sir," answered he, wearily, '^I have been trying 
all my life to discover it; but none of my ships have ever 
been there — none of my captains have any report to make. 
They bring me, as they brought my father, gold dust from 
Guinea; ivory, pearls, and precious stones, from every part 
of the earth; but not a fruit, not a solitary flower, from one 
of my castles in Spain. I have sent clerks, agents, and travel- 
ers of all kinds, philosophers, pleasure-hunters, and invalids, 
in all sorts of ships, to all sorts of places, but none of them 
ever saw or heard of my castles, except one young poet, and 
he died in a mad-house." 

"Mr. Bourne, will you take five thousand at ninety-seven?" 
hastily demanded a man, whom, as he entered, I recognized 
as a broker. "We'll make a splendid thing of it." 

Bourne nodded assent, and the broker disappeared. 

"Happy man !" muttered the merchant, as the broker went 
out; "he has no castles in Spain." 

"I am sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Bourne," said I, 
retiring. 

"I am glad you came," returned he; "but I assure you, 
had I known the route you hoped to ascertain from me, I 
should have sailed years and years ago. People sail for the 
North-west Passage,^* which is nothing when you have found 
it. Why don't the English Admiralty fit out expeditions to 
discover all our castles in Spain?" 

He sat lost in thought. 

"It's nearly post-time sir," said the clerk. 

Mr. Bourne did not heed him. He was still musing; and I 
turned to go, wishing him good morning. When I had nearly 



14. Nortli-west Passage. The long sought-for passage by sea 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the Arctic reg-ion. 



CURTIS 425 

reached the door, he called me back, saying, as if continuing 
his remarks: — 

"It is strange that you, of aU men, should come to ask me 
this question. If I envy any man, it is you, for I sincerely 
assure you that I supposed you lived altogether upon your 
Spanish estates. I once thought I knew the way to mine. I 
gave directions for furnishing them, and ordered bridal bou- 
quets, which were never used, but I suppose they are there 
still.'^ 

He paused a moment, then said slowly — "How is your 
wife?" 

I told him that Prue was well — that she was always remark- 
ably well. Mr. Bourne shook me warmly by the hand. 

"Thank you/' said he. "Good morning. '^ 

I knew why he thanked me; I knew why he thought that 
I lived altogether upon my Spanish estates; I knew a little 
bit about those bridal bouquets. Mr. Bourne, the millionaire^ 
was an old lover of Prue^s. There is something very odd 
about these Spanish castles. When I think of them, I some- 
how see the fair-haired girl whom I knew when I was not 
out of short jackets. When Bourne meditates them, he sees 
Prue and me c^uietly at home in their best chambers. It is a 
very singular thing that my wife should live in another man^s 
castle in Spain. 

At length I resolved to ask Titbottom if he had ever heard 
of the best route to our estates. He said that he owned 
castles, and sometimes there was an expression in his face 
as if he saw them. I hope he did. I should long ago have 
asked him if he had ever observed the turrets of my posses- 
sions in the West, without alluding to Spain, if I had not 
feared he would suppose I was mocking his poverty. I hope 
his poverty has not turned his head, for he is very forlorn. 

One Sunday I went with him a few miles into the country. 
It was a soft, bright day; the fields and hills lay turned to 
the sky, as if every leaf and blade of grass were nerves,. 



426 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

bared to the touch of the sun. I almost felt the ground 
wann under my feet. The meadows waved and glittered, 
the lights and shadows were exquisite, and the distant hills 
seemed only to remove the horizon farther away. As we 
strolled along, picking wild flowers, for it was in summer, 
I was thinking what a fine day it was for a trip to Spain, 
when Titbottom suddenly exclaimed: — 

"Thank God ! I own this landscape." 

"Youf returned I. 

"Certainly," said he. 

"Why," I answered, "I thought this was part of Bourne's 
property." 

Titbottom smiled. 

"Does Bourne own the sun and sky? Does Bourne own 
that sailing shadow yonder? Does Bourne own the golden 
luster of the grain, or the motion of the wood, or those ghosts 
of hills, that glide pallid along the horizon? Bourne owns 
the dirt and fences; I own the beauty that makes the land- 
scape, or otherwise how could I own castles in Spain?" 

That was very true. I respected Titbottom more than ever. 

"Do you know," said he, after a long pause, "that I fancy 
my castles lie just beyond those distant hills. At all events, 
I can see them distinctly from their summits." 

He smiled quietly as he spoke, and it was then I asked: 

"But, Titbottom, have you never discovered the way to 
them?" 

"Dear me ! yes," answered he, "I know the way well enough ; 
but it would do no good to follow it. I should give out before 
I arrived. It is a long and difficult journey for a man of 
my years and habits — and income," he added slowly. 

As he spoke he seated himself upon the ground; and while 
he pulled long blades of grass, and, putting them between 
his thumbs, whistled shrilly, he said: — 

"I have never known but two men who reached their estates 
in Spain." 



CURTIS 427 

'indeed!'' said I, "how did they goV 

"One went over the side of a ship, and the other out of a 
third-story window/' said Titbottom, fitting a broad blade- 
between his thumbs and blowing a demoniacal blast. 

"And I know one proprietor who resides upon his estates 
constantly," continued he. 

"Who is thatf' 

"Our old friend Slug, whom you may see any day at the 
asylum, just coming in from the hunt, or going to call upon 
his friend the Grand Lama,^^ or dressing for the wedding of 
the Man in the Moon, or receiving an ambassador from Tim- 
buctoo. Whenever I go to see him. Slug insists that I am 
the Pope, disguised as a journeyman carpenter, and he enter- 
tains me in the most distinguished manner. He always insist s^ 
upon kissing my foot, and I bestow upon him, kneeling, the 
apostolic benediction. This is the only Spanish proprietor in 
possession with whom I am acquainted.'^ 

And, so saying, Titbottom lay back upon the ground, and 
making a spy-glass of his hand, surveyed the landscape 
through it. This was a marvelous book-keeper of more than 
sixty! 

"I know another man who lived in his Spanish castle for 
two months, and then was tumbled out head-first. That was 
young Stunning, who married old BuhFs daughter. She was 
all smiles, and mamma was all sugar, and Stunning was all 
bliss, for two months. He carried his head in the clouds, and 
felicity absolutely foamed at his eyes. He was drowned in 
love; seeing, as usual, not what really was, but what he* 
fancied. He lived so exclusively in his castle that he forgot 
the office down town, and one morning there came a fall, and 
Stunning was smashed.'' 

Titbottom arose, and stooping over, contemplated the land- 
scape, with his head down between his legs. 

"It's quite a new effect, so," said the nimble book-keeper. 

15. Grand Ziama. The great High Priest of the Thibetans. 



428 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

"Well," said I, "Stunning failed?" 

"Oh, yes, smashed all up, and the castle in Spain came 
down about his ears with a tremendous crash. The family 
sugar w^as all dissolved into the original cane in a moment. 
Fairy -times are over, are they ? Heigh-ho ! the falling stones 
of Stunning's castle have left their marks all over his face. 
I call them his Spanish scars." 

"But, my dear Titbottom," said I, "what is the matter with 
you this morning, — your usual sedateness is quite goneV 

"It's only the exhilarating air of Spain," he answered. "My 
castles are so beautiful that I can never think of them, nor 
speak of them, without excitement; when I was younger I 
desired to reach them even more ardently than now, because 
I heard that the philosopher's stone^^ was in the vault of one 
of them." 

"Indeed!" said I, yielding to sympathy; "and I have good 
reason to believe that the fountain of eternal youth flows 
through the garden of one of mine. Do you know whether 
there are any children upon your grounds'?" 

" ^The children of Alice call Bartrum father !^ "^^ replied 
Titbottom, solemnly, and in a low voice, as he folded his 
faded hands before him, and stood erect, looking wistfully 
over the landscape. The light wind played with his thin white 
hair, and his sober, black suit was almost somber in the sun- 
shine. The half -bitter expression, which I had remarked upon 
his face during part of our conversation, had passed away, 
and the old sadness had returned to his eyes. He stood, in the 
pleasant morning, the very image of a great proprietor of 
castles in Spain. 

"There is wonderful music there," he said: "sometimes I 
awake at night and hear it. It is full of the sweetness of 
youth, and love, and a new world. I lie and listen, and I 



16. philosopher's stone. See note on page 33. 

17. The children of Alice, etc. The "Dream Children" of 
Lamb; for the quotation, see page 128, 



CURTIS 429 

seem to arrive at the great gates of my estates. They swing 
open upon noiseless hinges, and the tropic of my dreams 
receives me. Up the broad steps, whose marble pavement 
mingled light and shadow print with shifting mosaic, beneath 
the boughs of lustrous oleanders, and palms, and trees of 
unimaginable fragrance, I pass into the vestibule, warm with 
summer odors, and into the presence-chamber beyond, where 
my wife awaits me. But castle, and wife, and odorous woods, 
and pictures, and statues, and all the bright substance of my 
household, seem to reel and glimmer in the splendor, as the 
music fails. 

"But when it swells again, I clasp the wife to my heart, and 
we move on with a fair society, beautiful women, noble men, 
before whom the tropical luxuriance of that world bends and 
bows in homage; and, through endless days and nights of 
eternal summer, the stately revel of our life proceeds. Then, 
suddenly, the music stops. I hear my watch ticking under 
the pillow. I see dimly the outline of my little upper room. 
Then I fall asleep, and in the morning some one of the board- 
ers at the breakfast-table says: — 

" ^Did you hear the serenade last night, Mr. Titbottom T '^ 

I doubted no longer that Titbottom was a very extensive 
proprietor. The truth is that he was so constantly engaged 
in planning and arranging his castles that he conversed very 
little at the office, and I had misinterpreted his silence. As 
we walked homeward, that day, he was more than ever tender 
and gentle. "We must all have something to do in this world/ ^ 
said he, "and I, who have so much leisure — for you know I 
have no wife nor children to work for — ^know not what I 
should do, if I had not my castles in Spain to look after.'' 

When I reached home, my darling Pinie was sitting in the 
small parlor, reading. I felt a little guilty for having been 
so long away, and upon my only holiday, too. So I began 
to say that Titbottom invited me to go to walk, and that I 
had no idea we had gone so far, and that 



430 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

"Don't excuse yourself/' said Prue, smiling* as she laid 
down her book; "I am glad you have enjoyed yourself. You 
ought to go out sometimes, and breathe the fresh air, and run 
about the fields, which I am not strong enough to do. Why did 
you not bring home Mr. Titbottom to teaf He is so lonely, 
and looks so sad. I am sure he has very little comfort in 
this life,'' said my thoughtful Prue, as she called Jane to set 
the tea-table. 

"But he has a good deal of comfort in Spain, Prue," 
answered I. 

"When was Mr. Titbottom in Spain?" inquired my wife. 

"Why, he is there more than half the time," I replied. 

Prue looked quietly at me and smiled. "I see it has done 
you good to breathe the country air," said she. "Jane, get 
some of the blackberry jam, and call Adoniram and the 
children." 

So we went in to tea. We eat in the back parlor, for our 
little house and limited means do not allow us to have things 
upon the Spanish scale. It is better than a sermon to hear 
my wife Prue talk to the children; and when she speaks to 
nie it seems sweeter than psalm singing, — at least, such as we 
have in our church. I am very happy. 

Yet I dream my dreams, and attend to my castles in Spain. 
I have so much property there that I could not, in conscience, 
neglect it. All the years of my youth, and the hopes of my 
manhood, are stored away, like precious stones, in the vaults; 
and I know that I shall find everything convenient, elegant, 
and beautiful, when I come into possession. 

As the years go by, I am not conscious that my interest 
diminishes. If I see that age is subtly sifting his snow in the 
dark hair of my Prue, I smile, contented, for her hair, dark 
and hea\'y as when I first saw it, is all carefully treasured in 
my castles in Spain. If I feel her arm more heavily leaning 
upon mine, as we walk around the squares, I press it closely 
to my side, for I know that the easy grace of her youth's 



CURTIS 431 

motion will be restored by tlie elixir of that Spanish air. If 
her voice sometimes falls less clearly from her lips, it is no 
less sweet to me, for the music of her voice^s prime fills, 
freshly as ever, those Spanish halls. If the light I love fades 
a little from her eyes, I know that the glances she gave me, 
in our youth, are the eternal sunshine of my castles in Spain. 

I defy time and change. Each year laid upon our heads is 
a hand of blessing. I have no doubt that I shall find the 
shortest route to my possessions as soon as need be. Per- 
haps, when Adoniram is married, we shall all go out to one 
of my castles to pass the honeymoon. 

Ah ! if the true history of Spain could be written, what a 
book were there! The most purely romantic ruin in the 
world is the AUiambra.^^ But of the Spanish castles, more 
spacious and splendid than any possible Alhambra, and for- 
ever unruined, no towers are visible, no pictures have been 
painted, and only a few ecstatic songs have been sung. 
The pleasure-dome of Kubla Khan,^^ which Coleridge saw in 
Xanadu (a province with which I am not familiar), and a 
fine Castle of Indolence^^ belonging to Thomson, and the 
Palace of Art^^ which Tennyson built as a ^^lordly pleasure- 
house'^ for his soul, are among the best statistical accounts 
of those Spanish estates. Turner,^^ too, has done for them 
much the same service that Owen Jones^^ has done for the 



18. AHiambra. The great palace of the Spanish Moors at 
Granada. 

1'9. Kubla Kban. A Mongol emperor of the thirteenth century, 
who g"ave the title to a famous poem by Coleridge (see the quota- 
tion at the beginning- of the essay). 

20. Castle of Indolence. The subject of a fanciful poem, of 
the same name, by James Thomson (1748). 

21. Palace of Art, The subject of a poem of the same name 
by Tennyson. 

22^ Turner. A great British artist (1775-1851). His land- 
scapes, from their glowing imaginative beauty, suggested to Curtis 
the same sort of unreal sights as the poems just referred to. , 

23. Owen Jones. A British writer on architectural subjects 
(died 1874). 



432 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Alhambra. In the vignette to Moore's Epicurean^^ you will 
find represented one of the most extensive castles in Spain ; and 
there are several exquisite studies from others, by the same 
artists, published in Rogers's Italy.^^ 

But I confess I do not recognize any of these as mine, and 
that fact makes me prouder of my own castles, for, if there 
be such boundless variety of magnificence in their aspect and 
exterior, imagine the life that is led there, — a life not unworthy 
such a setting. 

If Adoniram should be married within a reasonable time, 
and we should make up that little family party to go out, 
I have considered already what society I should ask to meet 
the bride. Jephthah's daughter^^ and the Chevalier Bayard,^^ 
I should say — and fair Rosamond^® with Dean Swift^^ — King 
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba would come over, I think, 
from his famous castle — Shakespeare and his friend the Mar- 
quis of Southampton^^ might come in a galley with Cleopatra; 
and, if any guest were offended by her presence, he should 
devote himself to the Fair One with Golden Locks. Mephistoph- 
eles^^ is not personally disagreeable, and is exceedingly well- 
bred in society, I am told; and he should come tete-a-tete 
with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley. ^^ Spenser should escort his 
Faerie Queene, who would preside at the tea-table. 

24. ZSpicnrean. A novel by the poet Thomas Moore, published 
1827. 

25. Italy^ A poem by Samuel Rog-ers, published 1822. 

26. Jeplitliali's daugriiter. See Judges 11:31-40. 

27. Clievalier Bayard, See note on pag-e 392. 

28. Rosamond. Rosamond Clifford, a beauty beloved of Henry 
the Second. 

29. Dean Swift. Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels 
(1667-1745). 

30. Marquis of Southampton. More properl^^ Earl of South- 
ampton, a nobleman who for a time was Shakespeare's patron, 
and to whom some think that Shakespeare addressed many of 
his sonnets. 

31. MepMstoplieles. The devil, as he appears in Goethe's Faust 
and other forms of the same story. 

32. Mrs, Rawdon Crawley. Becky Sharp, the unscrupulous 
heroine of Thackeray's Vanity Fair. 



CURTIS 433 

Mr. Samuel Weller^^ I should ask as Lord of Misrule, and 
Dr. Johnson as the Abbot of Unreason. I would suggest to 
Major Dobbin^* to accompany Mrs. Fry;^^ Alcibiades^^ would 
bring Homer and Plato in his purple-sailed galley; and I 
would have Aspasia^^^ Ninon xie I'Enclos,^^ and Mrs. Battle,^^ 
to make up a table of whist with Queen Elizabeth. I shall 
order a seat placed in the oratory for Lady Jane Grey and 
Joan of Arc. I shall invite General Washington to bring 
some of the choicest cigars from his plantation for Sir Walter 
Raleigh; and Chaucer, Browning, and Walter Savage Landor 
should talk with Goethe, who is to bring Tassb on one arm 
and Iphigenia^^ on the other. 

Dante and Mr. Carlyle*^ would prefer, I suppose, to go 
down into the dark vaults under the castle. The Man in the 
Moon, the Old Harry, and William of the Wisp would be 
valuable additions, and the Laureate Tennyson might com- 
pose an official ode upon the occasion : or I would ask "They" 
to say all about it. • 

Of course there are many other guests whose names I do not 
at the moment recall. But I should invite, first of all, Miles 



33. Mr. Samuel "Weller. One of the chief characters in Dick- 
ens's Pickwick Papers. The Iiord of Misrule was the director of 
the Christmas sports at old English festivals. The Abbot of 
Unreason was a similar title, used in Scotland. 

34. Major Dobbin. Another character in Vanity Fair. 

35. Mrs. Pry. An English Friend or Quakeress (died 1845), 
distinguished for her work in prison reform. 

36. Alcibiades. A young Athenian politician; friend of Socrates. 

37. Aspasia. An Athenian beauty, beloved of Pericles. 

38. Ninon de I'Enclos. A beauty of the French salons of the 
late seventeenth century. 

39. Mrs. Battle. A character described by Lamb in his essay 
called "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist." 

40. Tasso . . . Ipliig-enia, The Italian poet and the ancient 
Greek heroine were the subjects of dramatic poems of Goethe's. 

41. Dante and Mr. Carlyle. Curtis assigns these characters to 
the lower regions in the one case because of Dante's authorship 
of the Inferno, in the other because of Carlyle's reputation for 
a morose or gloomy view of the world. 



434 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

Coverdale/^ who knows everything about these places and this 
society, for he was at Blithedale, and he has described "a 
select party" which he attended at a castle in the air. 

Prue has not yet looked over the list. In fact I am not 
quite sure that she knows my intention. For I wish to sur- 
prise her, and I think it would be generous to ask Bourne to 
lead her out in the bridal quadrille. I think that I shall try 
the first waltz with the girl I sometimes seem to see in my 
fairest castle, but whom I very vaguely remember. Titbottom 
will come with old Burton^^ and Jaques. But I have not 
prepared half my invitations. Do you not guess it, seeing 
that I did not name, first of all, Elia, who assisted at the 
"Rejoicings upon the new yearns coming of age'"?^* 

And yet, if Adoniram should never marry*? — or if we 
could not get to Spain? — or if the company would not come? 

What then? Shall I betray a secret? I have already enter- 
tained this party in my humble little parlor at home; and 
Prue presided as seretiely as Semiramis^^ over her court. 
Have I not said that I defy time, and shall space hope to 
daunt me? I keep books by day, but by night books keep 
me. They leave me to dreams and reveries. Shall I confess 
that sometimes when I have been sitting reading to my Prue, 
Cymbeline,^^ perhaps, or a Canterbury Tale, I have seemed 
to see clearly before me the broad highway to my castles in 
Spain; and as she looked up from her work, and smiled in 
sympathy, I have even fancied that I was already there. 



42. HHiles Coverdale. A character in Hawthorne's Blithe dale 
Romance, supposed in part to represent Hawthorne's own person- 
ality. Blithedale was the scene of a philosophic colony, sketched 
after that at Brook Farm, where Hawthorne spent some time as 
well as Curtis; this is the "castle in the air." 

43. Burton. A quaint writer of the seventeenth century, 
author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, 'This allies him with Jaques, 
the melancholy gentleman of As You Like It. 

44. Rejoicing's, eto. One of Lamb's Elia Essays, 1821. 

45. Semlramis. Ancient Queen of Assyria. 

46. Cymbeline. One of Shakespeare's romantic plays. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

[Oliver Wendell Holmes was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
in 1809. He was graduated from Harvard in the class of 1829, — 
a class remembered especially by a series of class poems which 
he wrote for successive anniversaries. He studied medicine, and 
in 1847 became Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the 
Harvard Medical School, remaining on the faculty for thirty-five 
years. Very early he attained some reputation as a poet, and 
when The Atlantic Monthly magazine was founded in 1857, he 
became its leading prose contributor; indeed his papers, "The 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," are sometimes said to have 
been the chief cause of the prompt success of the new periodical. 
Later series, sequels to the first, dealt with the Poet and tho 
Professor at the breakfast-table. Dr. Holmes was famous as a 
brilliant conversationalist, and in his Breakfast-Table papers he 
was often doing little more than developing in written form 
actual conversations between himself and his friends. He was 
one of the most genial and best beloved of the circle of writers 
which in the third quarter of the nineteenth century made 
Boston and Cambridge famous in the world of letters. Leading 
an active life, both physical and intellectual, almost to the last, 
he died in 1894.] 

BOATING! 
A YOUNG friend has lately written an admirable article in 
one of the journals, entitled, "Saints and their Bodies/' 
Approving of his general doctrines, and grateful for Jiis records 

1. This essay is a part of one of the Autocrat papers (the 
seventh), in which the Professor reads an essay on old age, and 
thus is led to discuss the forms of exercise that remain desirable 
for those past their youth. The author is representing his own 
life and opinions very definitely, and, though the Professor is an 
older man than Holmes was at this time (1858), yet he anticipates 
his own actual later years; for he kept up his active boating 
habits to an advanced age. His home was near the Back Bay, the 
shallow basin into which the Charles River originally widened 
between East Cambridge and Boston; and there are those still 
living who remember seeing him row up stream to the Cambridge 
shore, where stood (and still stands) the Riverside Press, at 
which the Atlantic was printed, in order to correct the proof sheets 
of his articles. Since those days the Back Bay has been largely 
filled in with made land, built up with an important new resi- 
dential district of Boston; so that one can no longer moor a 
river boat at the edge of the Common or the Public Garden, as 
Holmes speaks of doing in the essay. The opening sentence re- 
fers to an essay by Thomas Wentworth Higgenson, in the Atlantic 
for March, 1858. 

435 



436 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

of personal experience, I cannot refuse to add my own experi- 
mental confirmation of his eulogy of one particular form of 
active exercise and amusement, namely, boating. For the past 
nine years I have rowed about, during a good part of the 
summer, on fresh or salt water. My present fleet on the River 
Charles consists of three row-boats. 1. A small flat-bottomed 
skiff in the shape of a flat-iron, kept mainly to lend to boys. 
2. A fancy "dory" for two pairs of sculls, in which I some- 
times gO' out with my young folks. 3. My own particular 
water-sulky, a "skeleton" or "shell" race-boat, twenty-two feet 
long, with huge outriggers, which boat I pull with ten-foot 
sculls, — alone, of course, as it holds but one, and tips him 
out if he doesn't mind what he is about. In this I glide 
around the Back Bay, down the stream, up the Charles to 
Cambridge and Watertown, up the Mystic,^ round the wharves, 
in the wake of steamboats, which leave a swell after them 
delightful to rock upon; I linger under the bridges, — those 
"caterpillar bridges," as my brother professor so happily 
called them; rub against the black sides of old wood-schoon- 
ers; cool down under the overhanging stern of some tall 
Indiaman;^ stretch across to the Navy Yard, where the senti- 
nel warns me off from the Ohio, — just as if I should hurt her 
by lying in her shadow; then strike out into the harbor, where 
the water gets clear and the air smells of the ocean, — till all 
at once I remember that, if a west wind blow^s up of a sudden, 
I shall drift along past the islands, out of sight of the dear 
old State-house, — plate, tumbler, knife and fork all waiting 
at home, but no chair drawn up at the table, — all the dear 
people waiting, waiting, waiting, while the boat is sliding, 
sliding, sliding into the great desert, where there is no tree 
and no fountain. As I don't want my wreck to be washed 



2. the IMystic, The Mystic PJver unites with the Charles at 
Charlestown, and they flow together into Boston harbor. 

3. Zndiaman. Formerly the common name for a freight vessel 
that sailed to the Orient. 



HOLMES 437 

up on one of the besu^hes in company with devil's-aprons,* 
bladder-weeds, dead horse-shoes,^ and bleached crab-shells, I 
turn about and flap my long, narrow wings for home. When 
the tide is running out swiftly, I have a splendid fight to get 
through the bridges, but always make it a rule to beat, — 
though I have been jammed up into pretty tight places at 
times, and was caught once between a vessel swinging round 
and the pier, until our bones (the boat's, that is) cracked as 
if we had been in the jaws of Behemoth.^ Then back to my 
moorings at the foot of the Common, off with the rowing- 
dress, dash under the green translucent wave, return to the 
garb of civilization, walk through my Garden,^ take a look at 
my elms on the Common, and, reaching my habitat, in con- 
sideration of my advanced period of life, indulge in the 
Elysian abandonment of a huge recumbent chair. 

When I have established a pair of well-pronounced feather- 
ing-calluses on my thumbs, when I am in training so that I 
can do my fifteen miles at a stretch without coming to grief 
in any way, when I can perform my mile in eight minutes or 
a little more, then I feel as if I had old Time's head in chan- 
cery,^ and could give it to him at my leisure. 

I do not deny the attraction of walking. I have bored 
this ancient city through and through in my travels, until I 
know it as an old inhabitant^ of a Cheshire knows his cheese. 
Why, it was I who, in the course of these rambles, discovered 
that remarkable avenue called Myrtle Street, stretching in one 
long line from east of the Reservoir to a precipitous and 
rudely paved cliff which looks down on the grim abode of 



4. devirs-aprons. Sea-mosses of a familiar species. 

5. horse-slioes. Horse-shoe crabs. 

6. Beliemotli. A sea-monster of Hebrew literature (see Job 
40:15, where it probably is a name for the hippopotamus) ; Holmes 
may be using the term for a whale. 

7. my Qarden, The Public Garden, adjoining- Boston Common. 

8. in cliancery. Under my arm (a pugilistic x>ositlon). 

9. old inlLabitant. That is, a cheese-mite. 



438 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMEPxICAN 

Science/^ and beyond it to the far hills; a promenade so 
delicious in its repose, so cheerfully varied with glimpses 
down the northern slope into busy Cambridge Street with its 
iron river of the horse-railroad, and wheeled barges gliding 
back and forward over it, — so delightfully closing at its west- 
ern extremity in sunny courts and passages where I know 
peace, and beauty, and virtue, and serene old age must be 
perpetual tenants, — so alluring to all who desire to take their 
daily stroll, in the words of Dr. Watts,^^ 

Alike unknowing and unknown, — 

that nothing but a sense of duty would have prompted me 
to reveal the secret of its existence. I concede, therefore, 
that walking is an immeasurably fine invention, of which old 
age ought constantly to avail itself. 

Saddle-leather is in some respects even preferable to sole- 
leather. The principal objection to it is of a financial char- 
acter. But you may be sure that Bacon and Sydenham^^ did 
not recommend it for nothing. One's Jiepar^ or, in vulgar 
language, liver, — a ponderous organ, weighing some three or 
four pounds, — goes up and down like the dasher of a chum 
in the midst of the other vital arrangements, at every step 
of a trotting horse. The brains are also shaken up like cop- 
pers in a money-box. Riding is good, for those that are born 
with a silver-mounted bridle in their hand, and can ride as 
much and as often as they like, without thinking all the time 
they hear that steady grinding sound as the horse's jaws 
triturate with calm lateral movement the bank-bills and prom.- 
ises to pay upon which it is notorious that the profligate 
animal in question feeds day and night. 

Instead, however, of considering these kinds of exercise in 

10. grim abode of Science. The old Harvard Medical School. 

11. Dr. Watts. The well-known religious poet of the early 
eighteenth cenfury. 

12. Sydenham. A medical writer of the seventeenth century. 
For Bacon's remark see page 47. 



HOLMES 439 

this empirical way, I will devote a brief space to an examina- 
tion of them in a more scientific form. 

The pleasure of exercise is due first to a purely physical 
impression, and secondly to a sense of power in action. The 
first source of pleasure varies of course with our condition 
and the state of the surrounding circumstances; the second 
with the amount of kind of power, and the extent and kind 
of action. In all forms of active exercise there are three 
powers simultaneously in action, — the will, the muscles, and 
the intellect. Each of these predominates in different kinds 
of exercise. In walking, the will and muscles are so accus- 
tomed to work together, and perform their task with so little 
expenditure of force, that the intellect is left comparatively 
free. The mental pleasure in walking, as such, is in the sense 
of power over all our moving machinery. But in riding, I have 
the additional pleasure of governing another will, and my 
muscles extend to the tips of the animaFs ears and to his 
four hoofs, instead of stopping at my hands and feet. Now 
in this extension of my volition and my physical frame into 
another animal, my tyrannical instincts and my desire for 
heroic strength are at once gratified. When the horse ceases 
to have a will of his own and his muscles require no special 
attention on your part, then you may live on horseback as 
Wesley^^ did, and write sermons or take naps, as you like. 
But you will observe that in riding on horseback you always 
have a feeling that, after all, it is not you that do the work, 
but the animal, and this prevents the satisfaction from being 
complete. 

Now let us look at the conditions of rowing. I won't sup- 
pose you to be disgracing yourself in one of those miserable 
tubs, tugging in which is to rowing the true boat what riding 
a cow is to bestriding an Arab. You know the Esquimau 
kayak (if that is the name of it), don't you? Look at that 
model of one over my door. Sharp, rather*? — On the contrary, 

13. Wesley. The founder of Methodism. 



440 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AKD AMERICAN 

it is a lubber to the one you and I must have; a Dutch fish- 
wife to Psyche/^ contrasted with what I will tell you about. 
Our boat, then, is something of the shape of a pickerel, as you 
look down upon his back, he lying in the sunshine just where 
the sharp edge of the water cuts in among the lily-pads. It 
is a kind of giant pod, as one may say, — ^tight everywhere, 
except in a little place in the middle, where you sit. Its 
length is from seven to ten yards, and as it is only from 
sixteen to thirty inches wide in its widest part, you under- 
stand why you want those "outriggers," or projecting iron 
frames with the rowlocks in which the oars play. My row- 
locks are five feet apart; double or more than double the 
greatest width of the boat. 

Here you are, then, afloat with a body a rod and a half 
long, with arms, or vdngs, as you may choose to call them, 
stretching more than twenty feet from tip to tip; every voli- 
tion of yours extending as perfectly into them as if your spinal 
cord ran down the center strip of your boat, and the nerves 
of your arms tingled as far as the broad blades of your oars, 
— oars of spruce, balanced, leathered, and ringed under your 
own special direction. This, in sober earnest, is the nearest 
approach to flying^^ that man has ever made or perhaps ever 
will make. As the hawk sails without flapping his pinions, 
so you drift with the tide when you will, in the most luxurious 
form of locomotion indulged to an embodied spirit. But if 
your blood wants rousing, turn round that stake in the river, 
which you see a mile from here; and when you come in in 
sixteen minutes (if you do, for we are old boys, and not 
champion scullers, you remember), then say if you begin to 
feel a little warmed up or not ! You can row easily and gently 

14. Psyche. In Greek myth, a beautiful creature symbolic of 
the human soul. 

15. nearest approach to flyingr. In a late edition of the Autocrat 
(1891) Holmes adds a note here on the coming of the bicycle, 
whose rider flies "like feathered Mercury, with his wing's on his 
feet," and observes that nothing seems to be left but "aerial 
swimming, which some fancy is to be a conquest of the future." 



HOLMES 441 

all day, and you can row yourself blind and black in the face 
in ten minutes, just as you like. It has been long agreed that 
there is no such way in which a man can accomplish so much 
labor with his muscles as in rowing. It is in the boat, then, 
that man finds the largest extension of his volitional and 
muscular existence ; and yet he may tax both of them so 
slightly, in that most delicious of exercises, that he shall 
mentally write his sermon, or his poem, or recall the remarks 
he has made in company and put them in form for the public, 
as well as in his easy-chair. 

I dare not publicly name the rare joys, the infinite delights, 
that intoxicate me on some sweet June morning, when the river 
and bay are smooth as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run 
along ripping it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the 
rent closing after me like those wounds of angels which Milton 
tells of,^^ but the seam still shining for many a long rood 
behind me. To lie still over the Flats, where the waters are 
shallow, and see the crabs crawling and the sculpins gliding 
busily and silently beneath the boat, — to rustle in through the 
long harsh grass that leads up some tranquil creek, — to take 
shelter from the sunbeams under one of the thousand-footed 
bridges, and look down its interminable colonnades, crusted 
with green and oozy growths, studded with minute barnacles, 
and belted with rings of dark mussels, while overhead streams 
and thunders that other river whose every wave is a human 
soul flowing to eternity as the river below flows to the ocean, 
— lying there moored unseen, in loneliness so profound that 
the columns of Tadmor^^ in the Desert could not seem more 
remote from life — the cool breeze on one's forehead, the 
stream whispering against the half -sunken pillars, — ^why should 

16. ang'els which. Maiton tells of. Paradise Lost, Book vi: 

The griding sword with discontinuous wound 

Passed through him. But the ethereal substance closed, 

Not long divisible ; and from the gash 

A stream of nectarous humour issuing flowed. 

17. Tadmor. The same as Palmyra, a ruined city of the Syrian 
desert. 



442 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAN 

I tell of these things, that I should live to see my beloved 
haunts invaded, and the waves blackened with boats as with 
a swarm of water-beetles? What a city of idiots we must be 
not to have covered this glorious bay with gondolas and 
wherries, as we have just learned to cover the ice in winter 
with skaters! 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU 

[Henry David Thoreau was born at Concord, Massachusetts, in 
1817. He went to Harvard College, being graduated in 1837; 
taught school for a time; assisted his father in the manufacture 
of plumbago and pencils; and studied surveying, working in that 
profession when in need of money. He also gave occasional 
lectures in the "lyceums" of the day, but reserved the greater 
portion of his time for walking, thinking, reading, and writing. 
When statistics of his college class were being gathered, ten 
years after graduation, Thoreau replied to the questions asked: 
"I am a Schoolmaster, a private Tutor, a Surveyor, a Gardener, 
a Farmer, a Painter (I mean a House Painter), a Carpenter, a 
Mason, a Day-laborer, a Pencilmaker, a Glass-paper-maker, a 
Writer, and sometimes a Poetaster." Between 1845 and 1847 he 
lived in a little hut on th© shore of Walden Pond, near Concord, 
in order to test his theories of the simple life, and recorded the 
results in his chief book, Walden (1854). He was a close friend 
of Emerson and others of the New England group of philosophers, 
and one of the chief contributors to the magazine called The Dial. 
Like the other Concord writers, he was enthusiastic in the anti- 
slavery cause, but in general despised politics and held to a 
rather exaggerated individualism. A strong, eccentric character, 
he put the original flavor of his personality into his few writings 
with marked success. He died in 1862.] 

WALKING^ 

I HAVE met with but one or two persons in the course of 
my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking 
walks, — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which 
word is beautifully derived from "idle people who roved about 
the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under 
pretence of going a la Sainte Terre/^ to the Holy Land, till 
the children exclaimed, ^^There goes a Sainte'Terrer/^^ sl 
Saunterer, — a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy 
Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers 

1. This essay first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, in 1862, 
and was later included in the volume called Excursions. 

2, Salnte-Terrer. Thoreau was rather fond of etymologies 
more fanciful than correct, and this is such an instance. The 
real origin of the word is uncertain; the most probable view is 
that it came from "s'aventurer," to adventure one's self. 

443 



444 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in 
the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive 
the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, 
therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular 
home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret 
of successful sauntering. He w^ho sits still in a house all the 
time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, 
in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering 
river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest 
course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is 
the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of 
crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit^ in us, to go 
forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the 
infidels. 

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the 
walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-end- 
ing enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come 
round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we 
set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should 
go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of 
undying adventure, never to return, — prepared to send back 
our embalmed hearts* only as relics to our desolate king- 
doms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and 
brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never 
see them again, — if you have paid your debts, and made your 
will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then 
you are ready for a walk. 

To come down to my own experience, my companion and 
I, for I sometimes have a companion, take a pleasure in fancy- 
ing ourselves knights of a new, or rather an old, order, — not 
Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters^ or Riders, but Walkers, 

3. Peter tlie Hermit. One of the leaders of the First Crusade 
(1096). 

4. embalmed hearts. Thoreau may have had in mind various 
medical leg-ends concerning- the hearts of kings, such as that of 
Robert Bruce, who at his death directed that his heart be em- 
balmed and borne to the Holy Land. 

5. Chevaliers . . . Ritters. The literal meaning- of these old 
French and German words for "knights" is "horsemen." 



THOREAU 445 

a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The chivalric 
and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems 
now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the 
Walker, — not the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort 
of fourth estate, outside of Church and State and People. 

We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practiced this 
noble art; though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own asser- 
tions are to be received, most of my townsmen would fain 
walk sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth can 
buy the exquisite leisure, freedom, and independence, which 
are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace 
of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to 
become a walker. You must be born into the family of the 
Walkers. Ambulator nascitur, non fit.^ Some of my towns- 
men, it is true, can remember and have described to me some 
walks which they took ten years ago, in which they were so 
blessed as to lose themselves for half an hour in the woods; 
but I know very well that they have confined themselves to 
the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make 
to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated 
for a moment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of 
existence, when even they were foresters and outlaws. 

"When he came "^ to grene wode, 

In a mery mornynge, 
There he herde the notes small 

Of byrdes mery syngynge. 

"It is ferre gone, sayd Robin, 

That I was last here; 
Me lystes a lytell for to shote 

At the donne9 dere." 

6. Ambniator nascitnr, etc. "A walker is born, not made"; 
altered from the familiar saying- respecting- a poet 

7. Wlien Ixe came, etc. From one of the Robin Hood ballads. 

8. Me lyste. I desire. 

9. doime. Dun; the conventional color of deer in the green- 
wood literature. 



446 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN 

I 
I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I 

I spend four hours a day at least, — and it is commonly more 
than that,^sauntering through the woods and over the hills 
and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. You 
may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, or a thousand 
pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics 
and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, 
but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many 
of them, — as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to 
stand or walk upon, — I think that they deserve some credit 
for not having all committed suicide long ago. 

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day with- 
out acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen 
forth for a walk at the eleventh hour of four o'clock in the 
afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when tlie shades of 
night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, 
have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for, — 
I confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to 
say nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who 
confine themselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks 
and months, ay, and years almost together. I know not what 
manner of stuff they are of, — sitting there now at three 
o'clock in the afternoon, as if it were three o'clock in the 
morning. Bonaparte^^ niay talk of the three-o'clock-in-the 
morning courage, but it is nothing to the courage which can 
sit dow^n cheerfully at this hour in the afternoon over against 
one's self whom you have known all the morning, to starve 
out a garrison to whom you are bound by such strong ties 
of sympathy. I wonder that about this time, or say between 
four and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the morn- 
ing papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not 
a general explosion heard up and down the street, scattering 



10. Bonaparte. Napoleon was reported to have said that true 
courage was most evident at three o'clock in the morning". 



THOREAU 447 

a legion of antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to 
the four winds for an airing, — and so the evil cure itself. 

How womankind, who are confined to the house still more 
than men, stand it I do not know; but I have ground to sus- 
pect that most of them do not stand it at all. When, early 
in a summer afternoon, we have been shaking the dust of the 
village from the skirts of our garments, making haste past 
those houses with purely Doric^^ or Gothic fronts, which have 
such an air of repose about them, my companion whispers 
that probably about these times their occupants are all gone 
to bed. Then it is that I appreciate the beauty and glory of 
architecture, which itself never turns in, but forever stands 
out and erect, keeping watch over the slumberers. 

No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good 
deal to do with it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit 
still and follow indoor occupations increases. He grows ves- 
pertinaP^ j^ j^ig habits as the evening of life approaches, 
till at last he comes forth only just before sundown, and gets 
all the walk that he requires in half an hour. 

But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to 
taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at 
stated hours, — as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but 
is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you 
would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think 
of a man's swinging dumb-bells for his health, when those 
springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him ! 

Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be 
the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a trav- 
eler asked Wordsworth's servant to show him her master's 
study, she answered, "Here is his library, but his study is 
out of doors." 

Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no 

11. Doric. The New England homes of the well-to-do, at this 
period, v/ere commonly finished in the style of classical archi- 
tecture. 

12. vespertinaL Of the evening. 



448 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

doubt produce a certain roughness of character, — ^will cause 
a thicker cuticle to grow over some of the finer qualities of 
our nature, as on the face and hands, or as severe manual 
labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy of touch. So 
staying in the house, on the other hand, may produce a soft- 
ness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accompanied 
by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps 
we should be more susceptible to some influences important to 
our intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and 
the wind blown on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice 
matter to proportion rightly the thick and thin skin. But 
methinks that is a scurf that will fall ofl fast enough, — that 
the natural remedy is to be found in the proportion which the 
night bears to the day, the winter to the summer, thought to 
experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine 
in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conver- 
sant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism^ whose 
touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. 
That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks 
itself white, far from the tan and callous of experience. 

When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: 
what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a 
mall? Even some sects^^ of philosophers have felt the neces- 
sity of importing the woods to themselves, since they did 
not go to- the woods. ^^They planted groves and walks of 
Platanes,"^^ where they took suhdiales amhulationes'^^ in por- 
ticos open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our 
steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am 
alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the 
woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my after- 



13. some sects. Among- the Greeks, Aristotle*s school was 
called "peripatetic" because of their habit of discussing phil- 
osophy while walking- abroad; Plato's "Academic" because of 
their meeting in the grove of Academe. 

14. Platanes. Plane-trees. 

15. sulidiales amlbulationes. Walks in the open air. 



THOREAU 449 

noon walk I would fain forget ail my morning occupations 
and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that 
I cannot easily shake oE the village. The thought of some 
work will run in my head, and I am not where my body is, 
' — I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return 
to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am 
thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and 
cannot help a shudder, w^hen I find myself so implicated even in 
what are called good works, — for this may sometimes happen. 

My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so 
many years I have walked almost every day, and sometimes 
for several days together, I have not yet exhausted them. An 
absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still 
get this any afternoon. Two or. three hours' walking will 
carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A 
single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes 
as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey. There 
is in fact a sort of harmony discoverable between the capabil- 
ities of the landscape within a circle of ten miles' radius, or 
the limits of an afternoon walk, and the threescore years and 
ten of human life. It will never become quite familiar to you. 

Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the 
building of houses, and the cutting down of the forest and 
of all large trees, simply defonn the landscape, and make it 
more ajid more tame and cheap. A people who would begin 
by burning the fences and let the forest stand! I saw the 
fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle of the 
prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after 
his bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he 
did not see the angels going to and fro, but was looking for 
an old post-hole in the midst of paradise. I looked again, 
and saw him standing in the middle of a boggy, stygian^^ fen, 
surrounded by devils; and he had found his bounds without a 
doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been driven; and 

16. Stygian. Like the region of the river Styx, in Hades. 



450 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

looking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his 
surveyor. 

I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, 
commencing at my own door, without going by any house, 
without crossing a road except where the fox and the mink do : 
first along by the river, and then the brook, and then the 
meadow and the woodside. There are square miles in my 
vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can 
see civilization and the abodes of man afar. The farmers 
and their works are scarcely more obvious than woodchucks 
and their burrows. Man and his affairs, church and state and 
school, trade and commerce, and manufactures and agricul- 
ture, even politics, the most alarming of them all, — I am 
pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape. 
Politics is but a narrov/ field, and that still narrower highway 
yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveler thither. 
If you would go to the political world, follow the great road, 
— follow the market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it 
will lead you straight to it; for it, too, has its place merely, 
and does not occupy all space. I pass from it as from a 
bean-field into the forest, and it is forgotten. In one half- 
liour I can walk oif to some portion of the earth's surface 
where a man does not stand from one year's end to another, 
and there, consequently, politics are not, for they are but as 
the cigar-smoke of a man. . . . 

What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine 
whither we will walk ? I believe that there is a subtile magnet- 
ism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will 
direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we 
walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from 
heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would 
fain take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual 
world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we 
lovp to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, 



THOREAU 451 

no doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because 
it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea. 

When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet 
whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to my 
instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it 
may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle southwest, toward 
some particular wood or meadow or deserted pasture or hill 
in that direction. My needle is slow to settle, — ^varies a few 
degrees, and does not always point due southwest, it is true, 
and it has good authority for this variation, but it always 
settles between west and south-south-west. The future lies 
that way to me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and 
richer on that side. The outline which would bound my walks 
would be, not a circle, but a parabola, or rather like one of 
those cometary orbits which have been thought to be non- 
retuming curves, in this case opening westward, in which my 
house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round 
irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, 
for a thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest 
or west. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go 
free. Thither no business leads me. It is hard for me to 
believe that I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient wildness 
and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not excited 
by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the 
forest which I see in the western horizon stretches uninter- 
ruptedly toward the setting sun, and there are no towns nor 
cities in it of enough consequence to disturb me. Let me live 
where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, 
and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdraw- 
ing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much stress on 
this fact, if I did not believe that something like this is the 
prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk toward 
Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation 
is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east 
to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenom- 



452 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

enon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of 
Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, 
judging from the moral and physical character of the first 
generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful 
experiment. The eastern Tartars think that there is nothing 
west beyond Thibet. "The world ends there,'' say they, 
"beyond there is nothing but a shoreless sea." It is unmiti- 
gated East where they live. ^ 

We go eastward to realize history and study the works of 
art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go 
westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and 
adventure. The Atlantic is a Lethean stream,^'' in our passage 
over which we have had an opportunity to forget the Old 
World and its institutions. If w^e do not succeed this time, 
there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before it 
arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of 
the Pacific, which is three times as wide. 

I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evi- 
dence of singularity, that an individual should thus consent 
in his pettiest walk with the general movement of the race; 
but I know that something akin to the migratory instinct in 
birds and quadrupeds, — which, in some instances, is known to 
have affected the squirrel tribe, impelling them to a general 
and mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say some, 
crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip, with 
its tail raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams with 
their dead, — that something like the furor'^^ which affects the 
domestic cattle in the spring, and which is referred to a worm 
in their tails, — affects both nations and individuals, either 
perennially or from time to time. Not a flock of wild geese 
cackles over our town, but it to some extent unsettles the 
value of real estate here, and, if I were a broker, I should 
probably take that disturbance into account. 

17. Iiethean stream. See note on page 129o 

18. furor. Madness. 



THOREAU 453 

Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, 
And palmeres for to seken strange strondes.i^ 

Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire 
to go to a West as distant and as fair as that into which 
the sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily, 
and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer 
whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those moun- 
tain-ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, 
which were last gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, 
and the islands and gardens of the Hesperides,^^ a sort of ter- 
restrial paradise, appear to have been the Great West of the 
ancients, enveloped in mystery and poetry. Who has not seen 
in imagination, when looking into the sunset sky, the gardens 
of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those fables? 

Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than 
any before. He obeyed it, and found a new world for Castile 
and Leon. 2^ The herd of men in those dojs scented fresh 
pastures from afar. 

And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 
And now was dropped into the western bay; 
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue; 
Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.22 

Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal 
extent with that occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile 
and so rich and varied in its productions, and at the same time 
so habitable by the European, as this is? Michaux,^^ who 

19. Than long'exL, etc. From the opening of Chaucer's Prologue 
to the Canterbury Tales. 

20. Atlantis . . . Hesperides. Mythical islands of Greek 
legend. The latter were named from the "Daughters of Night," 
reputed to dwell in beautiful gardens in the far West. 

21. Castile and Iieon. The joint kingdom of Ferdinand and 
Isabella. 

22. And now the sun, etc. The closing lines of Milton's Lycidas. 

23. Michauz. A French botanist of the opening of the nine- 
teenth century, who wrote a v/ork on the trees of North America. 
His son, referred to in Thoreau's next paragraph, wrote on the 
same subject. 



454 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMEEICAK 

knew but part of them, says that "the species of large trees 
are much more numerous in North America than in Europe; 
in the United States there are more than one hundred and 
forty species that exceed thirty feet in height; in France there 
are but thirty that attain this size." Later botanists moro 
than confirm his observations. Humboldt^^ came to America 
to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, and 
he beheld it in its greatest perfection in the primitive forests 
of the Amazon, the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, 
which he has so eloquently described. The geographer Guyot,^^ 
himself a European, goes farther, — farther than I am ready 
to follow him; yet not when he says, — "As the plant is made 
for the animal, as the vegetable world is made for the animal 
world, America is made for the man of the Old World. . . . 
The man of the Old World sets out upon his way. Leaving 
the highlands of Asia, he descends from station to station 
towards Europe. Each of his steps is marked by a new 
civilization superior to the preceding, by a greater power of 
development. Arrived at the Atlantic, he pauses on the shore 
of this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he knows not, 
and turns upon his footprints for an instant." When he has 
exhausted the rich soil of Europe, and reirndgorated himself, 
"then recommences his adventurous career westward as in the 
earliest ages." So far Guyot. 

From this western impulse coming in contact with the bar- 
rier of the Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of 
modem times. The younger Michaux, in his "Travels West 
of the Alleghanies in 1802," says that the comimon inquiry in 
the newly settled West was, " ^From what part of the world 
have you come?' As if these vast and fertile regions would 
naturally be the place of meeting and common country of 
all the inhabitants of the globe." 

24. HTimlboldt. A German scientist, who went on an expedition 
to South America in 1799. 

25. Guyot. A Swiss scientist, who came to America and from 
1855 was professor at Princeton Colleg-e. 



THOREAU 455 

To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, Ex Orient e 
lux; ex Occidefite FRUX. From the East light; from the 
West fruit. 

Sir Francis Head, an English traveler and a Governor- 
General of Canada, tells us that '4n both the northern and 
southern hemispheres of the New World, Nature has not only- 
outlined her works on a larger scale, but has painted the 
whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she 
used in delineating and in beautifying the Old World. . . . 
The heavens of America appear infinitely higher, the sky is 
bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the moon looks 
larger, the stars are brighter, the thunder is louder, the light- 
ning is vivider, the wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the 
mountains are higher, the rivers are longer, the forests bigger, 
the plains broader.'^ This statement will do at least to set 
aorainst Buffon's^^ account of this part of the world and its 
productions. 

Linnaeus^'^ said long ago, "Nescio quae facies Icsta^ glabra 
plantis Americanis: I know not what there is of joyous and 
smooth in the aspect of American plants"; and I think that 
in this country there are no, or at most very few, Africance 
hestice, African beasts, as the Romans called them, and that 
in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for the habitation 
of man. We are told that within three miles of the center 
of the East-Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants 
are annually carried off by tigers; but the traveler can lie 
down in the woods at night almost anjnvhere in North America 
without fear of wild beasts. 

These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks 
larger here than in Europe, probably the sun looks larger 
also. If the heavens of America appear infinitely higher, and 
the stars brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical of 



2G. Buff on. A famous French naturalist of the eighteenth 
century. 

27. liinnsBus. A Swedish botanist of the eighteenth century. 



456 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 

the height to which the philosophy and poetry and religion 
of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance, 
the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the 
American mind, and the intimations that star it as much 
brighter. For I believe that climate does thus react on man, 
— as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the 
spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection 
intellectually as well as physically under these influences'? 
Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his 
life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our 
thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our 
sky, — our understanding more comprehensive and broader, 
like our plains, — our intellect generally on a grander scale, 
like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains and 
forests, — and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and 
depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will 
appear to the traveler something, he knows not what, of Iceta 
and glabra, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to 
what end does the world go on, and why was America dis- 
covered? 

To Americans I need hardly say, — 

Westward the star of empire takes its way.28 

As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam 
in Paradise was more favorably situated on the whole than 
the backwoodsman in this country. 

Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New 
England; though we may be estranged from the South, we 
sympathize with the West. There is the home of the younger 
sons, as am^ong the Scandinavians they took to the sea for 
their inheritance. It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it 
is more important to understand even the slang of today. 

28. Westward the star, etc. A common misquotation of a line 
from a poem by Bishop Berkeley, English philosopher of the 
eig-hteenth century, "On the Prospect of Planting" Arts and 
Learning in America." It properly reads "course of empire." 



THOREAU 457 

Some months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. 
It was like a dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its 
historic stream in something more than imagination, under 
bridges built by the Romans, and repaired by later heroes, 
past cities and castles whose very names were music to my 
ears, and each of which was the subject of a legend. There 
was Ehrenbreitstein^^ and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I 
knew only in history. They were ruins that interested me 
chiefly. There seemed to come up from its waters and its 
\dne-clad hills and valleys a hushed music as of Crusaders 
departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under the 
spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an 
heroic age, and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry. 

Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, 
and as I worked my way up the river in the light of today, 
and saw the steam-boats wooding up, counted the rising cities, 
gazed on the fresh ruins of Nauvoo,^° beheld the Indians 
moving west across the stream, and, as before I had looked 
up the Moselle now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri, and 
heard the legends of Dubuque^^ and of Wenona's Cliff,^- — 
still thinking more of the future than of the past or present, — 
I saw that this was a Rhine stream of a different kind; that 
the foundations of castles were yet to be laid, and the famous 
bridges were yet to be thrown over the river; and I felt that 
this was the heroic age itself, though we know it not, — for 
the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men. . . . 

29. Ehrenbreitstein, etc. Towns on the Rhine famous for 
castles or fortifications; Ehrenbreitstein is directly across the 
river from Coblentz, at the confluence of the Moselle. 

30. Nauvoo. A town on the Mississippi, in Illinois, settled by 
Mormons in their early mig-rations; they were expelled from it, 
with fire and bloodshed, in 1846. 

31. Dubuque. Near the present city of Dubuque, Iowa, occurred 
a fam.ous Indian battle between the tribe of the Pox and Sacs 
and the Sioux. 

32. Wenona's Cliff. In Wisconsin, on the eastern shore of Lake 
Pepin, where, according- to legend, a Dakota Indian maiden named 
Weenonah drowned herself because her parents had opposed her 
love for a young warrior. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Feb. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 

Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 , 

(724)779-2111 L 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 998 529 1 # 



